How do I append the UNIX command date to an echo statement

This will do it:

 echo "Hi, today is $(date)"

Date time will take in an arbitrary format string.

> date +"Hi, today is - %a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
  Hi, today is - Thu Feb 2 03:28: CET 2012

echo Hello there, today is `date`

You can also format the output of date using modifiers like:

echo Hello there, today is `date +%D`

See man date for a complete list of the modifiers.

Backtick will do the trick:

echo "Hi, today is" `date`

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