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—— ON THIS DAY ——
MAY 29, 1953
Summit of Mount Everest, Nepal/Tibet
72 years ago
Tenzing Norgay at the summit of Mount Everest, May 29, 1953 — the famous photograph taken by Edmund Hillary, the only summit photograph from that day. Hillary chose not to ask Norgay to photograph him in return.
At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa mountaineer from Nepal, reached the summit of Mount Everest — 8,848 meters above sea level, the highest point on Earth. They were the first people confirmed to have stood there. They had left their high camp at 6:30 a.m., climbing the final 300 meters in cold, wind, and thin air with supplemental oxygen, and had arrived at the top after pushing through what became known as the Hillary Step — a forty-foot vertical rock face just below the summit.
They spent fifteen minutes at the top. Hillary took photographs. Tenzing, a Buddhist, made an offering of food for the mountain. Hillary left a crucifix that expedition leader John Hunt had given him. They searched briefly for any evidence that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine — who had disappeared near the summit in 1924 — had made it to the top. They found none. Then they started down. Hillary's first words to teammate George Lowe on their return to the lower camps: 'Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.'
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
Mount Everest as seen from the air — the mountain that stands 8,848 meters above sea level, the highest point on Earth, first summited by Hillary and Norgay on May 29, 1953.
The news reached London on June 2, 1953 — the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation — in a coded message from The Times correspondent James Morris, who had hiked up to Camp IV to be near the summit team. It was read as a coronation gift. The newspapers announced both in the same headline. Hillary and expedition leader John Hunt were knighted by the Queen within days. Tenzing, as a citizen of neither the UK nor a Commonwealth realm, was given the George Medal — a lesser honor that his grandson later described as evidence of the 'petty bigotry' of the era.
The question of credit — who reached the summit first? — was a political minefield from the beginning. The British and New Zealand press initially reported that Hillary had been first; Indian and Nepali press reported Tenzing. Both men refused to answer definitively, saying only that they had reached the summit together. Tenzing, in his autobiography, later wrote that Hillary had in fact stepped onto the top slightly ahead of him. Hillary confirmed this near the end of his life. The question had mattered enormously to two nations; the men who had actually climbed the mountain thought it was less important than the fact that both of them had.
The 1953 expedition was the ninth serious British attempt on Everest. The mountain had been attempted since the early 1920s; at least thirteen people had died trying to climb it. The technology of the 1953 expedition — specially designed open-circuit oxygen sets, insulated down suits, high-altitude food — was significantly better than that of previous attempts. The route via the South Col, which Hunt had chosen, was also better than the approaches tried before. Success in 1953 was not inevitable, but it was more achievable than it had been in 1924.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
The first Everest summit represented the last major milestone in the age of geographic exploration. By 1953, both poles had been reached, the world had been circumnavigated, every continent explored. Everest was the last great geographic prize — the highest point on the planet's surface, by definition. Its summit closed a chapter of human exploration that had begun with the Polynesians crossing the Pacific.
Tenzing Norgay's role in the climb reflects the systematic undervaluing of Sherpa expertise in the history of Himalayan mountaineering. The 1953 expedition could not have succeeded without the Sherpas who carried loads, fixed ropes, and provided local knowledge. Tenzing was the most experienced high-altitude climber on the team — he had been to Everest six times previously. The differential treatment he received in terms of recognition and honor was noticed at the time and has been discussed ever since.
Hillary's post-summit life — spent building schools and hospitals for Sherpa communities — may be his more lasting achievement. He recognized that the Sherpa people who had made his fame possible lived in poverty and had no access to healthcare or education. The Himalayan Trust he founded built more than thirty schools and hospitals in Nepal. He devoted four decades to the project.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On May 29, 1953, two men stood on top of the world for fifteen minutes, took photographs, left offerings, and started back down. They had achieved something thirty years of attempts had failed to achieve. The news arrived in London on coronation morning. Hillary said they had knocked the bastard off. They had.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
"We knocked the bastard off."
— Edmund Hillary, on reaching George Lowe after the descent from Everest's summit, May 29, 1953
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the 1953 Everest expedition, the question of who stepped on the summit first, Tenzing Norgay's extraordinary mountaineering record, and the Himalayan Trust that Hillary built after the climb?
