Sorry, but I am a noob with an urgent question

Lets say I have a list of 10 dates in a column
How do I show the earliest date in the 11th row?
How do I do it across 2 rows of data?

for example:
6/12
7/4
8/9
7/16
5/12
7/9

of this group: I should show 5/12 as the earliest date
8/9 as the latest date

but I want to sort without resorting the data in my column

Your soonest help would be greatly appreciated