To set the date to October 29th, 16:21 in the year 2004:
date 102916212004
To set up the timezone properly, either run "tzselect", or directly overwrite /etc/localtime:
cp --remove-destination /usr/share/zoneinfo/
According to LFS, the reason for copying the file instead of using a symlink is to cover the situation where /usr is on a separate partition. This could be important when booted into single user mode.
You may use "EST5EDT" or "US/Eastern" for Eastern Time.
To upgrade the zoneinfo for the new Daylight Savings Time, install "tzdata" if running Debian, or install "timezone-data" if running Gentoo. See here for more info on building timezone manually or packages on other systems.
Verify you have up-to-date time zone by running "zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007". DST starts on Mar 11 and ends on Nov 4 this year.
To decide if the hardware clock is set to UTC, run "hwclock --localtime --show". This will display what the current time is according to the hardware clock. If this time matches whatever your watch says, then the hardware clock is set to local time. If the output from hwclock is not local time, chances are it is set to UTC time.