How store date in MySQL database?

To store dates or times in MySQL use date, datetime or timestamp. I'd recommend the first two for most purposes.

To tell MySQL how to parse your date format use the STR_TO_DATE function. Here's an example:

CREATE TABLE table1 (`Date` Date);
INSERT INTO table1 (`Date`) VALUES (STR_TO_DATE('01/05/2010', '%m/%d/%Y'));
SELECT * FROM table1;

Date
2010-01-05

To format the results back into the original form look at the DATE_FORMAT function. Note that you only need to format it if you want to display it as a string using something other than the default format.

Use date if you only care about the date and not about the exact time.