Drew-
First of all, tables, rows and fields can all be created via a mysql_db_query function. Just set a variable equal to the string you want input and then do a mysql_db_query("name of database", $string). The can also be retrieved the same way. Look at the MySQL documentation on the website for query types. A sample might be "SELECT * from table_name WHERE column_name="value"". So, it could look like
// Connect to DB here...
$query = "SELECT * from table_a WHERE date=\"12-12-2001\"";
$query = mysql_db_query("some_database", $query);
Now the value of $query is set to whatever rows it could find that matched the date criteria from table "table_a" in database "some_database". You could then make an array using:
$query = mysql_fetch_array($query);
and then use something like:
$query->date to output the date from the current row (from pointer).
Hope this helps a little. Anymore questions, email me.