Eighty years ago, William W. Hansen joined the Stanford Physics Department as a student and soon after started on a journey to build the first linear electron accelerator at the university. His success spawned the construction of a 1 Billion volt machine on campus which in turn led to the proposal to build the three-kilometer long electron accelerator at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Since 1966, this accelerator, its added storage rings and detectors have produced an incredible series of discoveries, resulted in four Nobel prizes, and opened the road to new projects currently underway, one of them in outer space, the other one an X-ray laser. In this Public Lecture, Gregory Loew, who has been at SLAC for five decades, will guide you through SLAC's origins, highlight its scientific achievements, and give you a glimpse of its future.