Looking for a way to add random dates to a column in one of your MySQL tables?
I ran across this problem and found a straightforward solution. By utilizing str_to_date(), concat(), floor() and rand() you can specify a random date for a column.
update mytable set mycolumn = str_to_date( concat( floor(1 + rand() * (12-1)), /* Generate a random month */ '-', floor(1 + rand() * (28 -1)), /* Generate a random day */ '-', '2008' ), '%m-%d-%Y' );