Short answers, pulled from the story.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo explored the area in 1542 when he sailed his flagship San Salvador into the bay and claimed the land for the Spanish Empire. He initially named the site San Miguel before the name was changed to San Diego de Alcalá in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno.
The permanent settlement of San Diego began in 1769 with the arrival of four contingents of Spaniards from New Spain and the Baja California peninsula. Gaspar de Portolá established the Presidio of San Diego on a hill near the San Diego River in May 1769, and Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Franciscan friars under Junípero Serra in July of the same year.
The Battle of San Pasqual occurred in December 1846 when American forces under General Stephen W. Kearney and Commodore Robert F. Stockton encountered about 93 Californios under Andrés Pico in the San Pasqual Valley. The Americans suffered their worst losses in the campaign during this engagement before Lieutenant Gray arrived to rescue Kearny's command.
The last of the tuna canneries in San Diego closed in the early 1980s due to rising costs and foreign competition. The industry had employed more than 1,000 people by the mid-1930s, but the decline marked the end of an era that had defined the city's industrial identity for decades.
San Diego recognizes 52 individual areas as Community Planning Areas and contains more than 100 identified neighborhoods based on geographical boundaries like canyons and street patterns. The city lies on approximately 200 deep canyons and hills separating its mesas, with the San Diego River running through the middle from east to west to divide the city into northern and southern segments.
The military provides roughly 25 percent of the GDP and 23 percent of the total jobs in San Diego. In 2008, the city was home to 53 ships, over 120 tenant commands, and more than 35,000 sailors, marines, Department of Defense civilian employees and contractors.