There are at least four legends about the founding of the town.
One of the legends says that during the 1812 War a French General De Jodine released five captives of the Russian Army. The soldiers founded a settlement and named it Zhodino in memory of a kind general.
Another legend says that one of the injured French soldiers found a shelter at a local farmer’s place. Having recovered, the Frenchman, Jorden, settled down in the village. The settlement was called Zhoden and then Zhodin.
The third legend narrates that Zhodino began its existence with a sentry-box of a lineman Zhodin who settled there after the construction of the Brest-Moscow railway in 1871.
The most beautiful and saddest legend is about the river Zhodinka. Long ago there lived a girl named Zhodinka. Her parents met an untimely end and she had no one except her grandmother and her brother. Some time later her grandmother died. The war broke in the town and her brother had to go to the war. The parting was very sad and painful. On the way home, Zhodinka was crying bitterly and her tears were falling to the ground. Suddenly the girl felt that something was coming up with her. She looked round and saw that her tears turned into small streams. They were flowing together into a big river… Later on the people started settling down on the banks of this river. And a new village was named Zhodino.
Zhodino was first mentioned in documents in the 18th century.
In 1793, after the second partition of the Rzecz Pospolita, the Smolevichi land was incorporated in the Russian Empire. the Minsk province was established the same year. An administrative reform that made Zhodino a village of the Smolevichi volost of the Borisov powiat of the Minsk province was carried out then, too.
During the 1812 War the French troops passed through Zhodino twice.
The development of the Smolevichi territory intensified following the construction of the railway Moscow-Brest in 1871 and a railway station in Zhodino.
The late 19th – early 20th centuries were marked by a powerful upturn of the national liberation and revolutionary movement. In the beginning of the 20th century, the power in the settlement changed repeatedly from the Soviet power to the German occupation, the Polish occupation and again to the Soviet Union.
The construction of the motorway Minsk-Moscow was completed in 1935. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, there was a locomotive depot in Zhodino.
In 1940-1941, the town launched the construction of a state district power station on the right bank of the river Plisa. The construction was suspended as the Great Patriotic War broke out. On June 29, 1941, Zhodino was occupied by the Nazis and was liberated on July 2, 1944.
After the war, Zhodino turned a new page in its history. In October 1946, a decision was taken to build a plant of peat engineering. The plant of peat engineering Torfmash was commissioned in May 1950. In March 1951, the plant was turned into a plant of road-making machines Dormash. The first truck was produced on November 5, 1958. The plant was renamed into Belarusian Autoworks.
The construction of the state district power station was completed in 1951.
In January, 1958, the Presidium of the BSSR Supreme Council awarded the status of a town to Zhodino.
The settlement grew very quickly. People from all around the Soviet Union came there to work. In 1961, the research institutes of cattle-breeding and agriculture were relocated to Zhodino.
The rapid development of the settlement, the growth of its population made grounds for giving Zhodino the status of an oblast town on March 7, 1963.
In 1998, the town council approved the emblem of the town and, in 1999, the anthem of Zhodino.