The Watergate scandal is a broad term used today to refer to the series of events that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in his second term.

Watergate specifically is a DC hotel and office complex where the Democratic National Committee's headquarters was. Some men broke into DNC headquarters, and Nixon's campaign clumsily attempted to cover up their involvement with this incident. Nixon's dirty tricks campaign and other issues gradually were unraveled through a series of events, most famously the Washington Post's coverage vis a vis the Deep Throat informant (much later revealed as FBI Special Agent W. Mark Felt). There is a lot more to it, but it was the domino that fell that led to huge upheaval in the federal government.

A good starting point is All the President's Men, the book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, or the film of the same name.

Richard Nixon was a Republican US president running for reelection and a group of Democrats, called the Democratic National Committee were trying to get their candidate elected. The DNC had their office in the Watergate Hotel, in Washington D.C..

One night there was a break-in at the DNC office, it wasn't a simple robbery, it was an attempt to steal documents and learn about the Democratic strategy. Lots of fingers got pointed and accusations flew quickly.

Long story short, it was in fact Nixon's administration who coordinated the break-in, the perpetrators were caught and found to be literally paid with campaign money from the Nixon campaign. Now this was bad, but the big "no-no" was the Nixon personally did all he could to cover up the crime. So it's a case less of the crime itself, more so that the President orchestrated a campaign to cover the whole thing up. The key was while Nixon was publicly defending himself and saying he knew nothing, the investigators literally got voice recordings, from the Oval Office, of the President talking about and directing the cover up process.

Many people were convicted or went to jail and facing legal action himself, Nixon stepped down from the presidency and his Vice President (who became President upon the abdication) pardoned Nixon. Ironically, had he done nothing at all, Nixon would have safely won his reelection anyway AND the act of pardoning Nixon was so unpopular it doomed his replacement, President Ford, to a largely do-nothing one term presidency.

The Democratic National Committee had offices in the Watergate complex - which held both offices and hotel rooms. During Nixon's second campaign for President, those offices were burglarized in an attempt to ascertain the campaign strategy for Nixon's opponent. The burglars are caught during that attempt.

A tip was given to Bob Woodward that the burglary was committed by allies of President Nixon. This tip came from a man calling himself "Deep Throat" - later revealed to be FBI Associate Director Felt.

As the investigation into that burglary continued, it was discovered that not only were the Republicans behind the burglary, but Nixon himself had authorized it. This was discovered because Nixon secretly recorded many of the interactions that he had in the Oval Office, including discussions of the break-in among them.

Nixon knew that this was damning evidence of a criminal conspiracy, and ordered that the special prosecutor be fired, leading to the resignation of key officials in the administration.

When the SCOTUS ruled that Nixon had to hand over the tapes, it was basically the end of his term. Articles of Impeachment were being drafted, and Nixon was told that he didn't have the votes in Congress to survive. On Aug 8th, 1974, Nixon resigned. That September, Ford pardoned Nixon for all his crimes.

A full timeline is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Watergate_scandal

In 1972, Richard Nixon was running for reelection. Nixon Had a shady group of characters working for called the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) and many of the members were part of his administration or close personal associates. Officially it was a fundraising organization, but really they engaged in a number of illegal activities like money laundering, political intimidation...etc

The headquarters of the Democratic Party (Nixon was a Republican) were in the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. Members of CREEP broke into the Democratic Party offices to steal documents and plant bugs. They were caught. Over the next 2 years, it became clear through whistle blowers, testimony at the trials of CREEP members, and the revelation of secret audio tapes that Nixon kept of conversations he had in the oval office, that Nixon was personally involved in covering up his administration's involvement with the break in and sabotaging official investigations into it. Facing almost certain impeachment and removal from office, Nixon chose instead to resign.

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