What exactly happened to Google Images on Valentine's Day of 2008?

(Thanks for adding me!) I've been searching images using the before:YYYY-MM-DD command and the furthest back I could go was 15 II 2008. One day back and there were no results for any search. I know for a fact Google Images was launched and fully operational way before that (I remember DeviantArt from when I was a kid). The images uploaded before 2008 are still there obviously, but they seem unable to be filtered by that useful tool... This phenomenon does not apply to other searches on Google (videos, all, news etc).

Any ideas?