Working with Dates in Sql

[J_F]

I created a table (jftest) with three fields as follows:
account char(10)
ckey varchar(25)
cmpdate date

I can insert datat into the account and ckey fields no problem. But I can not inert data into the cmpdate field. What is the correct syntax?

I also tried to Update the field with the following:

update jftest set cmpdate=to_date('4/19/2006', 'mm/dd/yyyy');

but get an error as well.

what is the correct syntax for updating date fields?