MySQL is made a lot easier if you don't have to fiddle with the command line or write much SQL. Go to http://www.phpwizard.net/projects/phpMyAdmin/ and download phpmyadmin. Just decompress it and put the directory in your webspace - it shouldn't need any more installation than that. If it complains, make sure the config file looks right.

You'll need a login and password for mySQL. Once you have that, you can create a database and a table. I'd suggest calling it article and having at least these four fields: id, timestamp, title, body. Then create a row and enter some test data.

Then create a PHP script with something along the lines of the following:

<?
mysql_connect ("localhost", "username", "password");
mysql_select_db("databasename");

$articles=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM article LIMIT 0,5");

while($article=mysql_fetch_array($articles) {
echo $article['title'].'<br>'.nl2br($article['body']).'<br><br>';
}
?>

That will list the first five article titles one per line. Just add a line within the while loop with echo $article['body'] to output the body of that article as well.

That should be enough to get you started.