The city derived its name from a rock formation along the Arkansas River, named the "Little Rock" (French: La Petite Roche) by the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe in the 1720s. The Little Rock, located across the river from a large bluff known as The Big Rock, was used by early travelers as a landmark and became a well-known river crossing.

Historical tribes of the area were the Caddo, Quapaw, Osage, Choctaw, and Cherokee.

There was an effort to officially name the city "Arkopolis" upon its founding in the 1820s, and that name did appear on a few maps made by the U.S. Geological Survey, but it was the name Little Rock that eventually stuck.

The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. A monument to these brave students stands on the grounds of the state capitol.

According to cheese historian Nick Rogers' short film, In Queso Fever: A Movie About Cheese Dip, the dish was invented by Blackie Donnely, the original owner of Mexico Chiquito restaurants, which he opened with his wife in North Little Rock in 1935.

The capital of the Arkansas Territory was moved to Little Rock from Arkansas Post in 1821.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park is the presidential library of Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States (1993-2001). The archives contain 2 million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, 21 million e-mail messages, and 79,000 artifacts from the Clinton presidency.

When the Little Rock Zoo opened in 1926, it had only two animals: a circus-trained bear and an abandoned timber wolf. Over the years, it has grown to include 725 animals representing more than 200 species.

On October 14, 1990, the world's largest soda float was created in Little Rock at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds. Ingredients included 1,200 pounds of Coleman Quality Checked Dairy's skim milk and 936 gallons of Coca-Cola.

"A Little Past Little Rock" was released in June 1998 as the first single from Lee Ann Womack's album Some Things I Know. The song peaked at number 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, behind "Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks.