All you need to know about writing and reading dates in British and American English.

How to read years
 We break years down into two numbers:
1967 = nineteen, sixty-seven
1492 = fourteen, ninety-two

special cases:
1900 = nineteen hundred (for the beginning of centuries)
1905 = nineteen o five (for years from XX01 to XX09)

2000 - 2009
2000 = two thousand (not usually "twenty hundred")
2008 = two thousand and eight (not usually "twenty o eight")  note: in AmE you can also say "two thousand eight"
For more than 2009 you can say both:
2010 = two thousand and ten = twenty ten

ORDER

In British English we usually start with the day of the month:
The first of May 2012

In American English they usually start with the month:
May the first, 2012

Abbreviations

Dates are usually written in abbreviations, not with all the words:
- My birthday is 2nd May = My birthday is 2 May
read my birthday is on the second of May  (notice the preposition ON before dates and "the" before the number)

If we want to say the year too:
Columbus discovered America on 12 Oct, 1492 (the comma is optional)
read Columbus discovered America on the twelfth of October, fourteen ninety-two

American English:
- My birthday is May 2nd = My birthday is May 2
read My birthday is (on) May (the) second  (notice that "on" and "the" are usually dropped so they usually say "... is May second")

If we want to say the year too:
Columbus discovered America Oct 12, 1492 (they always use a comma before the year)
read Columbus discovered America (on) October (the) twelfth, fourteen ninety-two

Different possibilities:
We can write: Oct or October (but always read "october")
We can write: 1st or 1 (but always read "first", always ordinal numbers!)

Date format in numbers (careful!)

1/5/1925

British = 1st May, 1925  (the first of May, nineteen twenty-five) = day+month+year 1/5/1925

American = Jan 5th, 1925 (January fifth, nineteen twenty-five) = month+day+year 1/5/1925

When the date belongs to this century, we usually put only the last two digits:

7/4/15 = (BrE) 7th April 2015