diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index 4e449e4..c02639d 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 ### Bugfixes
 
 - Fixed minimal openpyxl dependency version to 2.6.0 (#457).
+- Dates from xls files are now read as Python datetime objects (#373).
 
 ## 1.1.0 (2020-02-13)
 
diff --git a/src/tablib/formats/_xls.py b/src/tablib/formats/_xls.py
index 7a8ec63..b4e7eb2 100644
--- a/src/tablib/formats/_xls.py
+++ b/src/tablib/formats/_xls.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ from io import BytesIO
 import tablib
 import xlrd
 import xlwt
+from xlrd.xldate import xldate_as_datetime
 
 # special styles
 wrap = xlwt.easyxf("alignment: wrap on")
@@ -74,12 +75,19 @@ class XLSFormat:
 
         dset.title = sheet.name
 
+        def cell_value(value, type_):
+            if type_ == xlrd.XL_CELL_ERROR:
+                return xlrd.error_text_from_code[value]
+            elif type_ == xlrd.XL_CELL_DATE:
+                return xldate_as_datetime(value, xls_book.datemode)
+            return value
+
         for i in range(sheet.nrows):
             if i == 0 and headers:
                 dset.headers = sheet.row_values(0)
             else:
                 dset.append([
-                    val if typ != xlrd.XL_CELL_ERROR else xlrd.error_text_from_code[val]
+                    cell_value(val, typ)
                     for val, typ in zip(sheet.row_values(i), sheet.row_types(i))
                 ])
 
diff --git a/tests/files/dates.xls b/tests/files/dates.xls
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b74a045
Binary files /dev/null and b/tests/files/dates.xls differ
diff --git a/tests/test_tablib.py b/tests/test_tablib.py
index 3d71da5..6a2fbc2 100755
--- a/tests/test_tablib.py
+++ b/tests/test_tablib.py
@@ -975,6 +975,12 @@ class XLSTests(BaseTestCase):
         in_stream = self.founders.xls
         self.assertEqual(detect_format(in_stream), 'xls')
 
+    def test_xls_date_import(self):
+        xls_source = Path(__file__).parent / 'files' / 'dates.xls'
+        with open(str(xls_source), mode='rb') as fh:
+            dset = tablib.Dataset().load(fh, 'xls')
+        self.assertEqual(dset.dict[0]['birth_date'], datetime.datetime(2015, 4, 12, 0, 0))
+
     def test_xls_import_with_errors(self):
         """Errors from imported files are kept as errors."""
         xls_source = Path(__file__).parent / 'files' / 'errors.xls'