Friendship International Airport began operating in Linthicum on July 23, 1950, a day that Baltimore Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr. declared had "put Baltimore on the air map of the world."
Throughout the day, the number of spectators escalated from 35,000 to 80,000, as they gathered to watch the 56 flights that took off and landed on the new field, The Sun reported July 24, 1950.
Whenever an arrival or departure was announced, viewers flocked to the second-floor windows and upper-level observation deck. State troopers were called in to handle the crowd.
The first flight to go through Friendship International was an Eastern Air Lines plane traveling from Atlanta to Newark, N.J., that landed at 12:01 a.m.
More than two decades later, the state of Maryland purchased Friendship International Airport through the Department of Transportation for $36 million, and in 1973 it was renamed Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
In 2005, the airport became Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, honoring the former Supreme Court justice.
[ Source: Sun researcher Paul McCardell]