Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Hillary (1919 to 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist, best known for reaching the summit of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953, the first climbers confirmed to have done so. The pair were members of the ninth British expedition to the mountain, led by John Hunt, and Hillary had earlier joined the 1951 reconnaissance of Everest and an unsuccessful attempt on Cho Oyu in 1952. He later reached the South Pole overland in 1958 and then the North Pole, the first person to stand on both poles and the top of Everest. From 1960 he devoted himself to the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded to build schools and hospitals. He served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh, received the Order of the Garter in 1995 and was given a state funeral in 2008.