More than 40 years after its theoretical description, the process of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) has been observed for the first time by the COHERENT Collaboration, using the world's smallest functional neutrino detector: a 14.6-kg CsI[Na] crystal located at the Spallation Neutron Source of Oak Ridge National Lab. With its observation, CE$\nu$NS has emerged as a viable and powerful mechanism for exploring a wide range of physics, with connections to nuclear structure, astrophysics, dark sector physics, and physics beyond the Standard Model. These proceedings discuss the physics accessible with the process and detail aspects of the COHERENT observation. The current and future experimental CE$\nu$NS landscape will be surveyed, highlighting the diverse efforts planned and underway within the community, emphasizing their complementarity and underscoring the significant physics reach of this capable, new tool.