The Conquest of Everest (1852-1953)
The century-long effort to identify, approach, and climb the world's highest mountain, from the surveyors of British India to the first confirmed ascent by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
Events
An Indian Mathematician Identifies the Highest Point on Earth
Radhanath Sikdar, a Bengali mathematician working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, calculated from survey observations that "Peak XV" stood about 29,000 feet (8,839 meters) — the highest point on Earth. The Royal Geographical Society announced the finding in 1856, and the mountain was named after Sir George Everest, a former Surveyor General, while Sikdar's role was long confined to technical footnotes.
Location: Dehradun, India
The Mountain Gets Its Name
After years in which surveyors debated names drawn from Tibetan and Nepali sources, the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted "Mount Everest" for Peak XV, honoring the former Surveyor General of India despite his own objections that his name could not be written or pronounced in Hindi. The naming foreshadowed a century in which the mountain's global story would be told largely through British eyes.
Location: London, United Kingdom
First Reconnaissance From Tibet
The first British reconnaissance expedition, organized by the newly formed Mount Everest Committee and led by Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, explored the northern (Tibetan) side of the mountain after diplomatic negotiation with the 13th Dalai Lama's government. The party, including George Mallory, mapped a route up the East Rongbuk Glacier to the North Col and along the Northeast Ridge toward the summit.
Location: Mount Everest, Tibet
First Ascent Attempts and the 1922 Avalanche
The 1922 expedition made the first true attempts on the summit, using supplemental oxygen for the first time and setting a world altitude record of 8,321 meters (27,300 feet). On June 7, during a descent from a high camp led by George Mallory, an avalanche on the North Col swept seven Sherpa porters to their deaths — the first recorded climbing fatalities on Everest.
Location: Mount Everest, Tibet
Mallory and Irvine Disappear
On the third summit attempt of the 1924 expedition, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were last seen moving toward the summit, then vanished. Edward Norton had already climbed to 8,573 meters (28,126 feet) without oxygen on an earlier attempt. Whether the pair reached the summit before dying remains mountaineering's most enduring unsolved question.
Location: Mount Everest, Tibet
The Swiss Open the Southern Route
With Tibet closed after the Chinese takeover, climbers shifted to the Nepalese side. A Swiss expedition with Tenzing Norgay and Raymond Lambert climbed the southeast ridge to about 8,595 meters (28,199 feet), a new altitude record, before turning back. The attempt proved the southern route and forged the Tenzing-Hillary partnership that would succeed the following year.
Location: Mount Everest, Nepal
Hillary and Tenzing Reach the Summit
Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa climber, reached the summit of Everest at 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, on the ninth expedition to attempt the mountain, led by Colonel John Hunt. News reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, June 2. Tenzing, who had come within 250 meters of the top a year earlier, became a national hero across Asia; the ascent ended the century's most celebrated mountaineering quest.
Location: Mount Everest, Nepal
The Mystery Yields Its Clues
Seventy-five years after the disappearance, a search expedition found Mallory's body at 8,156 meters on the North Face, but the clues it yielded — including the absence of a photograph he carried — left the summit question unresolved. In 2024, a National Geographic team found Irvine's partial remains on the Rongbuk Glacier; the camera that could settle the mystery has never been recovered.
Location: Mount Everest, Tibet