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SLAC stands for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the original name of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Stanford University operates SLAC for the U.S. Department of Energy DOE Office of Science and it adopted its current name in 2008 when it shifted from a focus on particle physics to a broader research program including X-ray science, chemistry, materials sciences, and astrophysics.
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Google was initially based out of a garage rented from Susan Wojcicki, along with three rooms inside her house on Santa Margarita Avenue in Menlo Park. Wojcicki eventually became a Google employee and went on to be CEO of the company’s YouTube subsidiary. While the company moved to a bigger office at 165 University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto after five months, Google purchased the Menlo Park house in 2006 to preserve its history.
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The Facebook sign with the iconic thumbs up symbol is located outside the company’s headquarters at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park. On the reverse is the original sign of Sun Microsystems, who substantially vacated the site in 2010.
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Journalist and author David Halberstam died in a car crash at the intersection of Bayfront Expressway and Willow Road in Menlo Park, California, on 23 April 2007. He was a passenger in a car that turned left against a red light into the path of another car, and died at the scene as a result of injuries suffered in the impact.