title: How can I create a new Date instance in Ruby
body: <p>How can I create a new Date object in IRB with a given date.
  The following didn't work.</p>
  
  <pre><code>1.9.3p194 :053 &gt; require 'active_support'
   =&gt; true 
  1.9.3p194 :054 &gt; Date.new
   =&gt; #&lt;Date:0x9d80730&gt; 
  1.9.3p194 :055 &gt; Date.parse('12/01/2012')
  NoMethodError: undefined method `parse' for Date:Class
          from (irb):55
  
  1.9.3p194 :055 &gt; Date.new('12/01/2012')
  ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments(1 for 0)
  </code></pre>