Resources for getting started with web development?

Let's say I woke up today and wanted to create a clone of StackOverflow.com, and reap the financial windfall of millions $0.02 ad clicks. Where do I start?

My understanding of web technologies are:

HTML is what is ultimately displayed
CSS is a mechanism for making HTML look pleasing
ASP.NET lets you add functionality using .NET(?)
JavaScript does stuff
AJAX does asyncronous stuff
... and the list goes on!

To write a good website to I just need to buy seven books and read them all? Are Web 2.0 sites really the synergy of all these technologies?

Where does someone go to get started down the path to creating professional-looking web sites, and what steps are there along the way.

Solution

I think that this series of Opera Articles will give you a good idea of web standards and basic concepts of web development.

2014 update: the Opera docs were relocated in 2012 to this section of webplatform.org:

http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/Main_Page