In 1953 a huge British expedition arrived in Nepal to attempt Mount Everest - a mountain that had killed every climber who had tried. Two members of the team finally made it into position for a summit push: New Zealander Edmund Hillary, a part-time beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from the Himalayas.
On the morning of May 29, the two slowly climbed the last steep ridge, sucking on bottled oxygen and stepping carefully along a knife-edge of snow. At 11:30 a.m. they reached the very top of the world. They shook hands, hugged, took a few photos, and buried some chocolate as an offering.
They stayed only about 15 minutes - it was that cold and dangerous. When asked later who had set foot on the summit first, both men insisted it didn’t matter. They had done it together. Tenzing called Everest “my mountain,” and Hillary spent the rest of his life building schools for Sherpa villages.
