. In European countries and most other places in the world, the day comes first, then the month, and then the year. The fourth day in January would be written like this:

4 January 2005
4/1/05
04/01/2005
In formal European writings, the date is typically written in a similar fashion to the American version. So January 4, 2005 would simply have the month and day switched around, making it 4 January 2005. Notice in a formal European version of the date, there's no comma. The comma separating the date from the year is an Americanism that the Europeans do not follow.