Stamford was known as Rippowam to the Siwanoy Native American inhabitants of the region, and the very first European settlers also referred to it as such.

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 Salem, where 19 witches were hanged, both Stamford women were ultimately acquitted.

The Stamford Museum and Nature Center, located on a 118-acre site in the northern end of town, has a collection of works by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, who was a Stamford resident for a decade.

For years Stamford was known as the Lock City, after its major employer, the Yale & Town Manufacturing Company, which at its peak employed 10,000 people at its huge complex in the city's South End. But after the lock company relocated in the 1950's, that nickname lost its meaning.

The Gold Coast is about 50 miles northeast of New York City, and is home to many wealthy Manhattan business executives. Since the mid-20th century, a number of novels and films have been set here, including Gentleman's Agreement, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, The Swimmer, The Stepford Wives, and The Ice Storm.

Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, made North Stamford his home later in life. One of the Stamford little leagues is named after him.

The Stamford Cone is a 14-metre-high (46 ft) stained glass pavilion, composed of 204 panels of laminated mouth-blown glass. At the time of its completion in 1999, the artwork was the largest free-standing glass structure ever made.

World Wrestling Entertainment holds over 450 live events a year and is available to 900 million homes worldwide in 28 languages. WWE has had its global headquarters in Stamford since 1985, back when it was Titan Sports.

From Season 1 to Season 3, Dunder Mifflin Stamford was Dunder Mifflin Scranton's main rival, often outperforming them in sales volume. In Season 3, after Jim Halpert transferred to the Stamford branch, it became one of the primary settings for the show. The original idea was for Jim to return to Scranton after eight episodes, but the writers weren't totally sure they could leave Jim separated from Pam for that long. They ended up sticking to their original plan, because the two branches merged in the eighth episode of the season.

Boomerang (1947), directed by Elia Kazan, was based on the true story of a vagrant who was accused of murder by an incompetent police force, only to be found not guilty through the efforts of prosecutor Henry Harvey, who was based on Stamford resident (and mayor and later U.S. Attorney General) Homer Cummings. Almost all of the film was shot in Stamford after Kazan was denied permission to film in Bridgeport, where the events actually took place.