Customized display of LATEST 3 POSTS

To be more specific:
<div class=”box1″> – should display the LAST post
<div class=”box2″> – should display the second latests post
<div class=”box3″> – should display the third latest post

Okay, i managed to simplify things up a bit by reducing this to only one .CSS style, so i just need a code to display the latest 3 posts within a div structure:

<div class=”box1″>
<h3 class=”date”>01.06.2009</h6>
<h3 class=”title”>Post title</h3>
<p>Post text</p>
</div>

I searched up and down the forums, but i only found a way to display latest posts within a styled UL , not withing a <DIV> structure.

I tried with the following code, but it obviously doesn’t work, i cannot insert the <div> scheme in the printf statement

<?php
$how_many=5; //How many posts do you want to show
require_once('wp-config.php'); // Change this for your path to wp-config.php file ?>
<ol id="whats-new">
<?
$news=$wpdb->get_results("SELECT <code>ID</code>,<code>post_title</code> FROM $wpdb->posts
WHERE <code>post_type</code>=\"post\" AND <code>post_status</code>=\"publish\" ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT $how_many");
foreach($news as $np){
printf ("<li><a href=\"%s\">%s</a></li>", get_permalink($np->ID),$np->post_title);
} ?>
</ol>

Progressing with my WordPress experience ?? I managed to get it to work in this form:

<?php
$how_many=3; //How many posts do you want to show
require_once('wp-config.php'); // Change this for your path to wp-config.php file ?>
<?php
global $post;
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=3');
foreach($myposts as $post) :
?>

			 <div class="box1">
					<h6 class="date"><?php the_time('M d, Y') ?></h6>
					<h3 class="title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" ><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
					<p class="text">a few words</p>
			 </div>

<?php endforeach; ?>

However, now i need to have an excerpt , displaying a few words from the posts, and i have no ideea how to do that.
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>< returns nothing.
same for the_content()

Thanks for posting this code.

As I’ve been sitting here messing with it, and trying to get the content to show up I finally found something that works!

<?php the_content(); ?>

That function only works inside of “The Loop.” I’m sure the same goes for the_excerpt()

After I applied that concept, everything worked. The only problem I had after adding the loop was everything showing up twice. To fix that, just take out the foreach() function, and change the $myposts variable to $post. Voila! Works like a charm.

<?php $counter = 3;
       $recentPosts = new WP_Query();
       $recentPosts->query('showposts=3');
?>

<?php while ($recentPosts->have_posts()) : $recentPosts->the_post(); ?>

<div class="box<?php echo $counter--; ?>">
<h3 class="date"><?php the_date(); ?></h6>
<h3 class="title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
<?php the_content(); ?>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Cheers rainemaida, works a treat, just had to correct
<h3 class="date"><?php the_date(); ?></h6>