First ascent of Mount Everest

Since the beginning of twentieth century, spectacular races to climb the highest peaks of the world had occurred constantly from Peru’s Andes to Europe’s Alps, all the way to the Nepalese Himalaya. This led to a great popularity of the sport of mountaineering. However, it was not until 29 May 1953 that the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest (8,850 m), was finally ascended, by the the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008) and the Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986), as part of the British Everest expedition. This sparked a new phase of mountaineering around the world, with humans reaching some of the world’s most unknown and inhospitable places.