title: PHP: how to create date before the Epoch (1970) using Date instead of DateTime?
body: <p>In my PHP script I've got a function handling birthdays like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$dateTime = \DateTime::createFromFormat('U', $time);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The problem is that this returns <code>false</code> with negative $time numbers (i.e. dates before 1-1-1970). In the PHP docs there's a comment saying that indeed </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Note that the U option does not support negative timestamps (before
    1970). You have to use date for that.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I'm unsure of how to use Date to get the same result as <code>DateTime::createFromFormat()</code> gives though. Does anybody have a tip on how to do this?</p>