How to list a specific number of posts from 1 category in WordPress

You can place the following code in one of your theme’s template files to list a particular amount of posts from one of your site’s catagories.

<h2>Last 5 Tutorials</h2>
<?php query_posts('category_name=tutorials&showposts=5'); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Tested with WordPress 3.3