At 11.30am on 29 May 29 1953, the mountaineer Edmund Hillary and his Nepali Sherpa companion Tenzing Norgay stood at 8,848 metres above sea level and finally stopped to survey the view: one that nobody in the world had seen before. The two were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Standing proud among the Himalayas, bordered by Tibet and Nepal, the mountain had defeated all previous attempts to conquer it. Hillary’s expedition companions Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans had, just days before, come within 100 metres of the top, but been forced to turn back. Hillary would graciously credit his triumph as a team effort, praising Bourdillon and Evans’ work in clearing the path. However, the first foot on the highest point on Earth was his.
Read the full story in issue 30 of All About History, on sale now from the Imagine Shop.