Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

On 29 May 1953 New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa mountaineer, reached the summit of Mount Everest (about 8,849 m) as part of a British expedition led by John Hunt. They stayed only about 15 minutes at the top.

Whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine reached the summit before dying in 1924 is still unknown, so 1953 is the first ascent that is confirmed.

Context

The 1953 effort was a large British expedition under Colonel John Hunt, using supplementary bottled oxygen and a route up the South Col. Another pair, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, had reached the South Summit a few days earlier, and Hunt then chose Hillary and Tenzing for the second attempt.

At the top the two took photographs, mostly of Tenzing, because Tenzing did not know how to use the camera. They said later that they reached the summit together as a team, and they gave little emphasis to who stepped first.

The news reached London in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in early June 1953, and Hillary and Hunt were knighted. The accepted height of the peak has been revised with improved surveys, and Nepal and China announced a joint figure of about 8,848.86 m in 2020, so the exact figure in the text is a rounded value.