diff --git a/about.pl b/about.pl
index 7f0da61b7b..9fd15455d4 100755
--- a/about.pl
+++ b/about.pl
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ if ( defined C4::Context->config('docdir') ) {
     $docdir = C4::Context->config('intranetdir') . '/docs';
 }
 
-if ( open( my $file, "<", "$docdir" . "/history.txt" ) ) {
+if ( open( my $file, "<:encoding(UTF-8)", "$docdir" . "/history.txt" ) ) {
 
     my $i = 0;