Indeed. Even going 50 years back, we had different plugs for different parts of the UK. I remember my grandmother plugging stuff into her light fitting as well with an adapter. I'm sure stuff caught fire a lot then.
Regarding dates, I think yyyy-mm-dd makes sense (big endian dates) as you can sort naturally.
I switched to yyyy-mm-dd for almost all my own records shortly after I learned about it when I started using Linux in 1996. Having any consistent format helps in searching, and as you pointed out this is the simplest to sort.
Regarding dates, I think yyyy-mm-dd makes sense (big endian dates) as you can sort naturally.