What Is Python
Python is a portable, interpreted, object-oriented programming language. Its development started in 1990 at CWI in Amsterdam, and continues at CNRI in Reston, Va. The language has an elegant (but not over-simplified) syntax; a small number of powerful high-level data types are built in. Python can be extended in a systematic fashion by adding new modules implemented in a compiled language such as C or C++. Such extension modules can define new functions and variables as well as new object types.
(From An Introduction to Python on the Python website.)
Check out the Python website: http://www.python.org/
Or go direct to the Introduction to Python: http://www.python.org/doc/Introduction.html
There are also some newbie-oriented mailing lists here: