The CMS experiment obtained a large number of groundbreaking results from the analysis of 7- and 8-TeV proton-proton collisions produced so far by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In this brief summary only a sample of those results will be discussed. A new particle with mass m(H) = 125.3 +- 0.4(stat.) +- 0.5(syst.) GeV and characteristics compatible with those expected for a standard model Higgs boson has been observed in its decays to photon pairs, WW pairs, and ZZ pairs. Searches for the rare decays B_d -> mu mu and B_s -> mu mu have allowed to set limits on the branching fractions which are close to standard model predictions, strongly constraining new physics models. The top quark has been studied with great detail, obtaining among o...