  The Higgs boson plays a central role in the Standard Model, as well as in
theories which go beyond it. This article is therefore divided into two parts.
The first takes s historical approach and shows how the mass problem entered
weak interaction theory from the beginning and how it was solved by invoking
the Higgs boson. This is followed by a construction of the
Glashow-Salam-Weinberg model, again stressing the role played by the Higgs
doublet. This part culminates in the Higgs boson discovery of 2012. The second
part first discusses the shortcomings of the Standard Model and then touches
upon the major theories which try to improve upon it, mostly with profound
consequences on the Higgs sector. This is followed up by short descriptions of
a number of popular extensions of the Higgs sector, and culminates in a brief
introduction to effective field theory approaches to studying the Higgs sector.
