Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), and the oldest continuously published newspaper (the Hartford Courant).

Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called Fort Hoop in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers.

Connecticut's official nickname is "The Constitution State", adopted in 1959 and based on its colonial constitution of 1638-1639 which was the first in America and, arguably, the world.

In November 1878, the New Haven District Telephone Company made history by publishing the world's first telephone book. The book, a 40 page pamphlet, contained the names of the company's 391 subscribers as well as a step-by-step primer on how to properly operate a telephone receiver. In 2008, one of the only known surviving copies sold at auction for over $170,000.

On May 21, 1901, Connecticut became the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles, limiting their speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.

Salem's saga wasn't the only witch hunt that blew through New England in 1692. That same year, a Stamford house servant accused two women of witchcraft. But unlike in Salem, where 19 witches were hanged, both women were ultimately acquitted.

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, while his father was a student at Yale. He would grow up to serve as the 46th governor of Texas and the 43rd president of the United States. His father, George H. W. Bush, also served as president, and his grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut.

The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river".

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling "Frisbie!" as they let go.

Connecticut was one of two states (the other being Rhode Island) that decided not to ratify the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the United States. In 1933, widespread public disillusionment with the 18th Amendment led Congress to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition.