[Haskell-cafe] Create a list without duplicates from a list with duplicates

Hallo! Let's suppose I have a list [a,b,c,d,c,d]. I'd like to write a function that returns a new list without duplicates (in the example [a,b,c,d]). How can I do that? What is the most general way? I'd like to use the same function for a list of Int or String or some other user defined data type. Thank for your attention!