SQL grammar for SELECT MIN(DATE)

You need to use GROUP BY instead of DISTINCT if you want to use aggregation functions.

SELECT title, MIN(date)
FROM table
GROUP BY title

An aggregate function requires a GROUP BY in standard SQL

This is "Get minimum date per title" in plain language

SELECT title, MIN(date) FROM table GROUP BY title

Most RDBMS and the standard require that column is either in the GROUP BY or in a functions (MIN, COUNT etc): MySQL is the notable exception with some extensions that give unpredictable behaviour