You don't understand the startdates?
Take, for example, 19970308.0000
Let me stick some spaces in some helpful places:
1997 03 08 . 00 00
That better?
19970308 means 8th March 1997, and 0000 is in 24-hour clock format, IE 12:00 midnight
Stardates in the Star Trek universe work in an entirely different way. Wikipedia has a good explanation on how Stardates work.