In a link from PHP Magazine this morning:

The excellent folks at Oracle Technology Network wrote in this morning, with a link to their new multi-week series titled "The Hitchhiker's Guide to PHP".

In this new multi-week series, get a taste of the full spectrum of technical issues related to the PHP development lifecycle, from planning through deployment. Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, kicks off the series with an essay on where PHP comes from, and where it's going.

It seems that the goal of this series is to provide you with the knowledge of creating powerful PHP applications, starting with a simple script, moving all the way up to full applications. This first piece is a great place to start - with the history behind the language.