Today in History: First Summit Ascent of Mount Everest in 1953

Today in History: First Summit Ascent of Mount Everest in 1953
62 years ago today, at 11:30 a.m., Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth. On May 8, 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler are the firs to climb the summit without supplementary oxygen.
Mount Everest has a peak 8848 meters (29,029 ft) and is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas, on the border between Nepal and Tibet. The Tibetans call the mountain Chomo-Lungma, or “Mother Goddess of the Land.” The official English name was given by the Royal Geographical Society after British surveyor Sir George Everest. Mount Everest is one of only 14 mountains with a height of more than 8,000 meters (26,246 feet). It is the highest peak in Asia and one of the Seven Summits (the highest mountains of each of the seven continents).