How exactly does CMake work?

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I’m not asking this for just myself. I hope this question will be a reference for the many newbies who like me, found it utterly perplexing about what exactly what was going on behind the scenes when for such a small CMakeLists.txt file 

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 2.6)
project(Tutorial)
add_executable(Tutorial tutorial.cpp)

and such a small tutorial.cpp 

int main() { return 0; }

there are so many files generated

CMakeCache.txt  cmake_install.cmake  Makefile
CMakeLists.txt  tutorial.cpp

and a CMakeFiles folder with so many files and folders 

CMakeCCompiler.cmake               CMakeOutput.log    Makefile.cmake
cmake.check_cache                  CMakeSystem.cmake  progress.marks
CMakeCXXCompiler.cmake             CMakeTmp           TargetDirectories.txt
CMakeDetermineCompilerABI_C.bin    CompilerIdC        Tutorial.dir
CMakeDetermineCompilerABI_CXX.bin  CompilerIdCXX
CMakeDirectoryInformation.cmake    Makefile2

Not understanding what was going on behind the scenes (i.e: why so may files had to be generated and what their purpose was), was the biggest obstacle in being able to learn CMake.

If anyone knows, could you please explain it for the sake of posterity? What is the purpose of these files, and when I type cmake ., what exactly is cmake configuring and generating before it builds the project?

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