design question - getting info from 3 tables

[Marjeta]

I have 3 tables with 6 different date fields:
- "problems" with creation_date
- "funding_requests" with request_date and 3 different approval dates
- "purchase_orders" with po_date

I would like to select the list of all problem names where at least one of the 6 dates fall within a particular range.

Should I:

1) build a select statement, joining the three tables together and
WHERE ((p.creation_date BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR
(fr.request_date BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR
(fr.approval_1 BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR
(fr.approval_2 BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR
(fr.approval_3 BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR
(po.po_date BETWEEN start_date AND end_date) OR

or
2) create an action_history table which would look like:
p_id | action | action_date
--------------------------
1212 | created | 1/1/2000
1212 | new fr | 1/1/2000
1212 | 1st appr | 1/1/2000
1212 | 2nd appr | 1/1/2000
1212 | 3rd appr | 1/1/2000
...

I would have to add triggers to my three tables to update action_history table for every update or insert.

Then I can just join tables problems and action_items with simple where clause:
WHERE ah.action_date BETWEEN start_date AND end_date


Which is better design? How would you do it?