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Function: Helper function for {{start-date}}/{{birth-date}} and {{end-date}}/{{death-date}}. This template is of interest to template writers only. This template emits a dtstart or dtend date sequence as described by the hcalendar spec at the microformats community site.
Overview/Vision The main reason for existence of this template is to expose dates associated with events or people to the internet. The standards are called Microformats, and the next major release of browsers such as internet explorer and Firefox are said to allow use of this information. For example, with address or coordinate data, map icons will activate on the toolbar so that the user may see a satellite image of a place discussed in an article. Historical data might be used by a sort of google earth history- where the user can navigate not just in space, but in time. Human readable encoding of dates will make such data ubiquitous in Wikipedia, establishing it the central repository and preeminent source of semantic information on the web.