get the min date from a list

[Roy Smith]

In article <mailman.12816.1407668534.18130.python-list at python.org>,
 Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:

> Your simplest answer is probably to write a function that converts
>  a string like you have into a datetime object, say call it
>  converter (). Then after testing it, you call
> 
> min (dates, key = converter)

Wow, after all these years, I didn't know min() took a key argument.  Of 
course, it makes sense, but I just never noticed that before.  Thanks!

And for the OP, for the converter function, I would suggest 
dateutil.parse.parser(), from the python-dateutil module 
(https://labix.org/python-dateutil).