History
The $2 million shopping center on 15 acres (61,000 m2) was developed by Berman Enterprises LP and opened on November 14, 1956, with 30 stores. The developers also developed the Ingleside Shopping Center near Baltimore, Maryland.
On April 24, 1964, the Hecht Company opened a 83,714-square-foot (7,777.3 m2) store, its sixth location in the Washington, D.C., area, at the center. A notable feature of the store at its opening was the French Provincial beauty salon and snack bar. The store closed and moved to adjacent Laurel Mall in 1981.
The shopping center's claim to fame came in 1972, when Alabama Governor George Wallace was wounded in an assassination attempt while campaigning for the presidency on May 15. Wallace survived the assassination attempt but was left paralyzed from the waist down. A bank branch remains near the location of the assassination attempt – Equitable Trust at the time and currently Bank of America.
A lesser known involvement in another significant part of American history came three days before the September 11 attacks. Hijacker Mohamed Atta sent $5000 to Mustafa Ahmad via a wire transfer he initiated at the Giant Food store located in the shopping center.
Read more about this topic: Laurel Shopping Center
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)