John J. Montgomery achieved the first controlled flight with a heavier-than-air flying machine in the United States when he successfully flew three glider aircraft designed in the period 1883-1886 from Otay Mesa.
On July 18, 1984, in an event known as the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, James Oliver Huberty, a 41-year-old former welder from Canton, Ohio, committed a mass-murder of 21 people inside of a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro.