SOURCE

var xmlhttp;
function loadXMLDoc(url)
{
xmlhttp=null;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// all modern browsers
  xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else if (window.ActiveXObject)
  {// for IE5, IE6
  xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
if (xmlhttp!=null)
  {
  xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=state_Change;
  xmlhttp.open("GET",url,true);
  xmlhttp.send(null);
  }
else
  {
  alert("Your browser does not support XMLHTTP.");
  }
}

function state_Change()
{
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4)
  {// 4 = "loaded"
  if (xmlhttp.status==200)
    {// 200 = "OK"
    document.getElementById('p1').innerHTML="This file was last modified on: " + xmlhttp.getResponseHeader('Last-Modified');
    }
  else
    {
    alert("Problem retrieving data:" + xmlhttp.statusText);
    }
  }
}

<p id="p1"> The getResponseHeader() function returns a header from a resource. Headers contain file information like length, server-type, content-type, date-modified, etc.</p> 
 <button onclick="loadXMLDoc('/example/ajax/test_xmlhttp.txt')">Get "Last-Modified"</button>