Alter the charset and collation to UTF8 for a database and a table. Also inspects the default charset and collation for the entire database.

mysql_alter_charset_and_collation_to_utf8.sql

-- Inspect the default charset and collation for your database
SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.schemata WHERE schema_name = 'MYDATABASE_NAME';

-- Alter the default charset and collation for your database
-- CAREFUL: when you change the charset for your database, make sure the data in your tables matches that character set. 
-- If it is not, follow these steps: http://www.alphadevx.com/a/420-Converting-a-MySQL-database-from-latin1-to-utf8
ALTER DATABASE MYDATABASE_NAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

-- Alter the default charset and collation for your database
ALTER TABLE MYTABLE_NAME CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;