For dates, every country seems to do something different. The date '04/01/80' means '4th January' in Britain, but 'April 1st' in America. This can lead to problems in computer programs, on QSL cards, on Web Pages, in email, and in newsletters. In a few years time we will also have dates like '02/05/03' and '04/09/05' to contend with.
ISO 8601 has a solution to these problems. The date is written using the full four digits for the year, with the order Year-Month-Day, and hyphen separators. A leading Zero is used for '01' to '09'.
However, I note that the ISO standard only refers to wholly numeric dates. Whilst I realise that a date written as '4th January 1980', here in Britain, is clear enough in itself; over in America that same date would be written as 'January 4th, 1980'. This again shows a difference in style, one that merely reflects the old '04/01/80' (dd/mm/yy) and '01/04/80' (mm/dd/yy) short-hand date formats
ISO 8601 has a solution to these problems. The date is written using the full four digits for the year, with the order Year-Month-Day, and hyphen separators. A leading Zero is used for '01' to '09'.
However, I note that the ISO standard only refers to wholly numeric dates. Whilst I realise that a date written as '4th January 1980', here in Britain, is clear enough in itself; over in America that same date would be written as 'January 4th, 1980'. This again shows a difference in style, one that merely reflects the old '04/01/80' (dd/mm/yy) and '01/04/80' (mm/dd/yy) short-hand date formats