12.04.1961 - First human in outer space.

I suffer from an opposite disorder - cannot get used to American dates.

I would think that the problem would not be your usage of date formats, but everybody else's.

I always find myself feeling annoyed with whoever uses ##-## as a date format, no matter if it's normal or American style. Of course, I get (slightly) annoyed by forms that ask you to enter dates in dd-mm-yyyy format.

Using formats like dd-mm and mm-dd is something no one who cares even the slightest about his/her international public should do. Even if it's unambiguous (day 13 or up), it still requires someone to compare the numbers and reparse the date.

The ISO datestyle is good for technical people who really should know about these things. It's also very nice because it sorts lexically, which is very nice in computer programs.

For contracts and other places where somebody not accustomed to the ISO date format, writing the month in full or shortening it in letters (like you do), is probably much nicer. Of course, that leaves the added problem of translation, but it's a little better for an international public even if just in English, since there are English-speaking countries that use one and that use the other. Not to mention the whole "English is not my native tongue but I speak it quite well"-crowd.

Here you are:

http://www.google.co.uk/logos/yuri_gagarin.gif

And they also did Sputnik:

http://www.google.com/logos/google_sputnik.gif