Unable to select an old date in wordpress

I am unable to set the year below 1899 for a post. If i set year below 1899 it is set to the current year automatically.

I have purchased the Timeline theme and asked in their support forum. They replied:

This sounds like a limitation created by your hosting provider. Nothing in the theme is preventing the date you assign – as you can see, the demo has posts using dates in the 1400s. Try contacting your hosting provider and see if they have any insight on how to address that.

This is not really an answer, just an attempt to find the specific context for this problem. Please install the following plugin on your site, try to set the three dates and add your result to the second <pre> in the table below.

/* Plugin Name: WPSE Sysinfo */
add_action( 'admin_footer', 'wpse_sysinfo' );
function wpse_sysinfo() {

    $bit         = 4 === PHP_INT_SIZE ? 32 : 64; // PHP version, not OS!
    $php_version = PHP_VERSION;
    $db_version  = $GLOBALS['wpdb']->db_version();

    print "<pre>$bit | $php_version | $db_version</pre>";
}

Gist of the Plugin can be checked out here.

OS           | OS bit | PHP         | PHP Bit | MySQL  | 999  | 1899 | 2020 | 2039 | user

WIN7         |     64 | 5.4.4       | ??      | 5.5.25 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | toscho
Linux        |     ?? | 5.3.18-nmm1 | ??      | 5.1.70 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | toscho
CentOS 6     |     64 | 5.5.4       | ??      | 5.0.95 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | toscho
WIN7         |     64 | 5.4.15      | 32      | 5.5.31 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | rarst
Ubuntu 12.04 |     64 | 5.3.10-1    | 64      | 5.5.32 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | Pille
CloudLinux   |     64 | 5.2.17      | 64      | 5.0.96 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | Pille
Ubuntu 12.10 |     64 | 5.4.6       | 64      | 5.5.32 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | Michael Ecklund
CENTOS 5.9   |     32 | 5.3.27      | 32      | 5.5.32 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | Michael Ecklund
WIN7         |     64 | 5.4.7       | 64      | 5.5.27 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | kaiser
OSX 10.7.5   |     64 | 5.3.6       | 64      | 5.5.9  |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | GhostToast
Centos 6.4   |     64 | 5.4.17      | 32      | 5.1.59 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | birgire
Debian 6     |     64 | 5.4.19      | 64      | 5.1.66 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | birgire
WIN7         |     64 | 5.5.0       | 64      | 5.5.22 |   ✘  |   ✘  |  ✔   |   ✘  | G.M.
OSX 10.7.4   |     64 | 5.3.6       | 64      | 5.5.9  |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | brasofilo
CentOS 5     |     64 | 5.3.22      | 64      | 5.1.68 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | brasofilo
Mac 10.8.5   |     64 | 5.3.26      | 64      | 5.5.25 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | flentini
WIN7         |     64 | 5.3.27      | 64      | 5.5.31 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | Sascha Krause
Win7SP1      |     64 | 5.3.8       | 64      | 5.5.28 |   ✔  |   ✔  |  ✔   |   ✔  | Manuel Sychold

1. Create a new post. Save it.
2. Set the date to Jan. 1st, 0999, click Update. Is it saved or changed to the current date?
3. Repeat for the date settings for 1899, 2020 and 2039.
4. Take the information from the plugin output in your admin footer, and update the table.