Five and a half miles above sea level among the mighty Himalayan range is the tip of the tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest.
The mountain is on the border of Nepal and Tibet, and is named after Sir George Everest, the British Surveyor-General of India who first determined its altitude in 1841. Tibetans call the mountain Chomolungma and the Nepalese call it Sagarmatha.
Everest had foiled several attempts to scale it, the first in 1922, and it wasn't until 1953 that Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa tribesman, finally made it to the top.
The expedition, led by Sir John Hunt, set up a series of tent camps up the slope of the mountain. From the last camp, at 27,900 feet, Hillary and Norgay climbed to the top on May 29, 1953.
