Happy 35th birthday to Gal Gadot, the Israeli actress who gained worldwide fame portraying Wonder Woman. After winning the Miss Israel beauty pageant in 2004, she served two years in the Israel Defense Force as a fitness/combat readiness instructor, and began studying law, while pursuing acting.

Gadot’s first big film was Fast & Furious. Her mark in the DC Extended Universe, began with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, followed by the solo film Wonder Woman, and the ensemble Justice League.

In 2018, Gadot was included on Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people, and she was listed among the highest-paid actresses in the world. (1985)

– Gage Skidmore, CC license

More Good News from this Day in History:

• The U.S. doubled its size through the Louisiana Purchase paying $15 million, thanks to the vision of Thomas Jefferson (1803)
• The ice cream cone made its debut—originally as warm dough rolled flat, as it came out of the oven still pliable (1904)
• Elvis Presley recorded the Leiber and Stoller song ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ the title song of his third motion picture of the same name and the first song ever to debut at No.1 in Great Britain (1957)
• U.S. hostage Frank Reed was freed after four years in the hands of pro-Iranians (1990)
• Tim Berners-Lee, after creating the first-ever website with a European team at CERN, announced that the “World Wide Web”—created by using their new HTML protocols—would be available for free to everyone (1993)
• U.S. President Bill Clinton became the first President to visit Northern Ireland (1995)
• Ellen DeGeneres joined the US Postal Service to unveil Animal Rescue commemorative postage stamps to bring greater attention to the cause of pet adoption within animal shelters across the U.S. (2010)

And on this day 1939, the New York World‘s Fair opened, featuring The World of Tomorrow — a prophetic vision of the future that included television, air conditioning, refrigerators, dish washers, clothes washers and long-distance calling from videophones.

At the height of the Great Depression, a group of New York City businessmen decided to create an international expo to lift the city and the country out of its economic woes.The first fair to be based on the future, 44 million people attended the exhibits with 33 countries participating. Carl Sagan’s own interest in science was sparked by the Fair’s gadgetry. WATCH a 4 min news reel…

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