  The understanding of flavour dynamics is one of the key aims of elementary
particle physics. The last 15 years have witnessed the triumph of the
Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism, which describes all flavour changing transitions
of quarks in the Standard Model. This important milestone has been reached
owing to a series of experiments, in particular to those operating at the
so-called $B$ factories, at the Tevatron, and now at the LHC. We briefly review
status and perspectives of flavour physics, highlighting the results where the
LHC has given the most significant contributions, notably including the recent
observation of the $B_s^0\to\mu^+\mu^-$ decay
