 <p>I did it like this - it works in IE8, Fx3.6, Safari4, Chrome as opposed to the un-edited string which works in Fx but not in several other browsers:</p> <pre><code>new Date('2001-01-01T12:00:00Z'.replace(/\-/g,'\/').replace(/[T|Z]/g,' ')) </code></pre> <p>but I am sure someone will post a REGEX with backreferencing :)</p>