The purpose of this paper is to put together a large amount of results on the $K(\pi,1)$ conjecture for Artin groups, and to make them accessible to non-experts. Firstly, this is a survey, containing basic definitions, the main results, examples and an historical overview of the subject. But, it is also a reference text on the topic that contains proofs of a large part of the results on this question. Some proofs as well as few results are new. Furthermore, the text, being addressed to non-experts, is as self-contained as possible.