I would Google HTML tutorial and just do a few of them to learn the basics. As you start to retain the knowlege you gain from doing the more simpler tutorials, you should then look into creating CSS-based layouts which is more SEO-friendly than table-based layouts. With that said however, table-based layout may be the best place to start since they're simpler to create.
HTML is hypertext markup language. <html> <title> <head> <body bgcolor=" "> <p> ....... </head> </title> </body> </html>