[9] In 2005, the airport was named in honor of Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native and the first African American to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Planning for a new airport on 3,200 acres (1,300 ha) to serve the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area began in 1944, just prior to the end of World War II, when the Baltimore Aviation Commission announced its decision that the best location to build a new airport would be on a 2,100-acre (850 ha) tract of land near Linthicum Heights, Maryland.

Ritchie Highway at Furnace Branch was rejected by the United States Department of War, and another possible site at Lipin's Corner was deemed too far from Baltimore.

Truman arrived in a Douglas DC-6, then the official presidential airplane, from nearby Washington National Airport.

Accompanying Truman were the Governor of Maryland, William Preston Lane Jr., and Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., who was taking his first aircraft flight.

[21] The Official Airline Guide reports 52 weekday departures from the airport as of April 1957: 19 Eastern, 12 Capital, 8 American, four National, three TWA, three United, two Delta, and one Allegheny.

[22] By 1963, Friendship Int'l Airport was equipped with a 9,450 foot (2,880 m) runway, which could handle any commercial jet aircraft at that time.

[23] In 1972, the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) purchased Friendship International Airport from the City of Baltimore for $36 million.

Upgrades included improved instrument landing capabilities and runway systems, and construction of three new air cargo terminals, expanding the airport's freight capacity to 2.53 acres (1.02 ha).

[26] In 1979, the terminal renovation program was completed, representing the most dramatic work of the airport's modernization, which was designed by DMJM along with Peterson & Brickbauer.

[29] The station provided rail transit access to Washington, D.C., something that Dulles International Airport did not achieve until late 2022.

The airport has been a haven for low-cost flights in the Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan Area since Southwest Airlines' arrival in September 1993[39] and subsequent expansion in the early 2000s.

[41] The airline operated the flight with McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and sought to serve the many people of West African origin residing in the region.

According to officials, the company was operating on an expired license and had disobeyed orders to stop flying an unsafe plane.

[46][47] In June 2006, North American Airlines introduced a link to Accra via Banjul, The Gambia, marking the restoration of direct flights between Baltimore and Africa.

In early 2016, a partnership between the airport and Towson University's WTMD radio station was announced, including a new concert series that takes place at the terminal's baggage claim on the lower level.

[66][67] The project (according to airport management as well as Clark Construction, the company hired for the project) is expected to "transform the customer experience by adding a direct connection between concourses, expanding airline hold rooms, creating new food and retail concession spaces, enhancing restrooms, and introducing a new, fully in-line baggage handling system for Southwest."

[76] Local buses that stop at the airport terminal include the Maryland Transit Administration's 75 route to Patapsco station on Light RailLink and Arundel Mills Mall, as well as route 201, which connects the airport to Shady Grove station on the Washington Metro.

Passenger van service to and from the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland is available through BayRunner Shuttle with services to and from BWI to Kent Island, Easton, Cambridge, Salisbury, Ocean Pines, and Ocean City (for the Eastern Shore) and Grantsville, Frostburg, Cumberland, Hancock, Hagerstown, and Frederick (for Western Maryland).

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security facility is located in the lower level of the main terminal, near the international arrivals area / Concourse E Baggage Claim.

In the early 1990s, BWI Airport opened the Thomas A. Dixon Aircraft Observation Area at Friendship Park.

The observation plaza features a playground and a terrace overlooking the southern approach to the airport's 15R-33L runway.

[81] BWI has been a backdrop in six films, Goldfinger (1964), Broadcast News (1987), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Company Business (1991), Home for the Holidays (1995), and Twelve Monkeys (1995).