[14] Kaluga's most famous resident, the space travel pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, worked there as a school teacher from 1892 to 1935.

The Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics in Kaluga is dedicated to his theoretical achievements and to their practical implementations for modern space research, hence the motto on the city's coat of arms: Колыбель Космонавтики, Kolybélʹ kosmonávtiki ("The Cradle of Space-Exploration").

On 19 January 1777, the Kaluga drama theatre opened its first theatrical season, established with the direct participation of the Governor-General Mikhail Krechetnikov.

On several occasions during the Russian Empire Kaluga was the residence of political exiles and prisoners such as the last Crimean khan Şahin Giray (1786), the Kyrgyz sultan Arigazi-Abdul-Aziz (1828), the Georgian princess Thecla (1834–1835), and the Avar leader Imam Shamil (1859–1868).

[18] The German army briefly occupied Kaluga during the climactic Battle of Moscow, as part of Operation Barbarossa.

In recent years, Kaluga has become one center of the Russian automotive industry, with a number of foreign companies opening assembly plants in the area:[20] On 28 November 2007, Volkswagen Group opened a new assembly plant in Kaluga, which further expanded by 2009.

[23] On 12 December 2007, PSA Peugeot Citroën announced its decision to build a new assembly plant in Kaluga.