Tenzing Norgay and the First Ascent of Everest

At 11:30 AM on May 29, 1953, Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa mountaineer born in the Khumbu region of Nepal (raised in Darjeeling, India), and New Zealand beekeeper Edmund Hillary became the first people confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest (8,849 meters / 29,032 feet) — the highest point on Earth. They spent about 15 minutes on the summit, where Hillary took the famous photograph of Tenzing holding his ice axe aloft with flags of Britain, Nepal, India, and the United Nations. When asked who stepped on the summit first, both men insisted it was a team effort. The news reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and Hillary was knighted. Tenzing received the George Medal but not a knighthood — a distinction that reflected the colonial hierarchies of the era. Tenzing became a national hero in both Nepal and India, and the Sherpa people gained worldwide recognition as the indispensable backbone of Himalayan mountaineering.