Okay so is there a way to set a date that can be easily modified to a different format later on. Example: A date is in a mysql database, and it is in a universal format; it gets put into a document, is there a way for the date format to be changed on-the-fly?
Yes, it's called a unix timestamp, which represents seconds since epoch (December 31rst, 1969).
With timestamps, you can use the date() function to output the date in any format you wish.