Fossils that are native to Tallahassee include invertebrates such as strombuses, turritellas, coral heads, foraminifera, spiny oysters, conchs and nautiluses, vertebrates such as early horses, camels and llamas, as well as tapirs, giant bison, elephants, cave bears, rabbits, alligators, turtles, dugongs, sharks and mastodons. But there are no dinosaur fossils to be found in the city as Dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago and the oldest rocks in Florida that aren't thousands of feet below the surface are a mere 40 million years old.

The proper term for a native of Tallahassee: Tallahasseean.

The Tallahassee Automobile Museum boasts a collection of more than 160 automobiles, including three Batmobiles, an 1894 Duryea, a 1931 Duesenberg Model J Double Cowl Phaeton Convertible, 1911 Ford Model T Torpedo Run About, 1955 Kayser Darrin Roadster, a Delorean, a 1948 Tucker, and the horse-drawn hearse that transported Abraham Lincoln to his grave.

Apprehended heading west across the Florida Panhandle in February 1978, Ted Bundy was brought back to Tallahassee and later indicted there for several murders that had taken place on the Florida State University campus in January of that year. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two trials. He was executed at Florida State Prison in Raiford on January 24, 1989.

Creed began in 1994 when Florida State University classmates Scott Stapp and Mark Tremonti realized they had a mutual love of music. They would go on to form one of the most commercially successful rock bands of the late 1990s, with their first three studio albums going multi-platinum in the United States. The band also won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for "With Arms Wide Open" in 2001.

The city boasts Florida's most educated population, with about half of its residents having a bachelor's degree or higher.

During the American Civil War, Tallahassee was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi River not captured by Union forces, and the only one not burned. A small engagement, the Battle of Natural Bridge, was fought south of the city on March 6, 1865, just a month before the war ended. The conflict lasted most of the day, but unable to take the bridge in three separate charges, the Union troops led by Brig. Gen. John Newton eventually retreated.

In 1972, Ford was elected as Tallahassee's first African-American mayor and the first African-American mayor of any state capital city. As mayor (and later city commissioner), he played a key role in establishing the Minority Business Department, the Frenchtown Area Development Authority, and the Affirmative Action Office. He also worked to eliminate segregation in the city government and to secure employment opportunities for people of color.

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) is a facility at Florida State University in Tallahassee that performs magnetic field research in physics, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, geochemistry, and biochemistry. It is the only such facility in the United States. Currently the lab holds a world record for the world's strongest magnet for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy experiments. The 33-short-ton series connected hybrid (SCH) magnet broke the record during a series of tests conducted by MagLab engineers and scientists. The instrument reached its full field of 36 Tesla on 15 November 2016.

Doak S. Campbell Stadium, popularly known as "Doak", is the home field of the Florida State Seminoles football team. With a capacity of 79,560, it is the largest continuous brick structure in the United States, the 49th-largest stadium in the world, the second-largest stadium in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and the 18th largest stadium in the NCAA.