1953 Hillary and Tenzing conquer Everest

A beekeeper from New Zealand, Edmund Hillary, and the Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of the world’s highest peak.

After climbing with British teams in the Himalayas in 1951 and 1952, Hillary and another New Zealander, George Lowe, were invited to join John Hunt’s 1953 British Everest Expedition. On 29 May – four days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II – the chosen pair, Hillary and the experienced Tenzing, reached the 8848-m-high summit of Mt Everest via the south-east ridge. They were the first men known to have stood there.

From the moment Hillary told Lowe that they had ‘knocked the bastard off’, his life was public property. Hillary was knighted and fêted around the world, and went on to become the most famous New Zealander ever to have lived.

Image: Royal Geographical Society