An overview of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is presented, starting from its motivations in the early days, up to the achievements recently recognized with the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, that this session of the Neutrino Telescopes Workshop celebrates. After describing the main design features, the paper will focus on the experimental challenges faced over the years, and then on the results of the three data-taking phases, including the solar neutrino combination analyses.