Richard Montgomery (1738-1775) was an Irish soldier who first served in the British Army and later became a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is most famous for leading the unsuccessful 1775 invasion of Quebec, during which he was killed.

The Alabama River played an important role in the growth of the economy in the region during the 19th century as a source of transportation of goods, which included slaves. The river is still used for transportation of farming produce, but is not as important as it once was due to the construction of roads and railways.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott took place after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement in the United States and led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared the laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

Nicknames for Montgomery include the Cradle of the Confederacy and Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. The Gump is a more recent moniker popularized by rap group Deuce Komradz.

Present-day Montgomery is built on the site of two Alibamu towns: Ikanatchati, meaning "red earth," and Towassa, built on a bluff called Chunnaanaauga Chatty.

In 1886 Montgomery became the first city in the United States to install citywide electric streetcars along a system that was nicknamed the Lightning Route. Residents followed the streetcar lines to settle in new housing in what were then "suburban" locations.

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1974 because of its importance in the civil rights movement and American history. In 1978, the official name was changed to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was pastor there and helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

Upon taking office on November 12, 2019, Steven Reed became the first African-American mayor of Montgomery since its incorporation in 1819.

The First White House of the Confederacy is an 1835 Italianate-style house in which President Jefferson Davis and family lived while the Confederate capital was in Montgomery.

Andrew Dexter Jr. founded New Philadelphia, the present-day eastern part of downtown Montgomery. He envisioned a prominent future for his town and set aside a hilltop known as "Goat Hill" as the future site of the state capitol building. New Philadelphia prospered, and Scott and his associates built a new town adjacent, calling it East Alabama Town. Originally rivals, the towns merged on December 3, 1819, and were incorporated as the town of Montgomery.