Mount Everest: Timeline, Maps
— -- It took 29 years from the first documented attempt to scale Mount Everest until humans successfully reached the top. Here are some maps and notable dates of the world's most famous mountain.
1841: Here it IsSir George Everest, a noted surveyor of India who made countless adaptations to methods and equipment for measuring terrain, records the mountain's exact location. In 1859 the mountain is named after him.
1924: 'Because It Is There' On the morning of June 8, British climbers George Mallory (responsible for the famous quip) and Sandy Irvine set out from their camp at 26,700 feet (8,138 meters) on the Northeast Ridge. They are last seen hours later, "moving expeditiously" toward the summit. Mallory's body is found in 1999.
1950: Switching Sides The Chinese invade Tibet, and the northern approach, used by all previous expeditions, is shut off to Westerners. Today, each season sees attempts on both the Tibetan and Nepalese sides of the peak, though most commercial expeditions climb from Nepal.
1952: Swiss MissA Swiss expedition, with climbers Raymond Lambert and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, lay the groundwork for the first successful summit. Following the South Col, or South-East Ridge Route, they get to within 800 feet of the summit before the conditions force them to turn back.
1953: First on Top Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to stand on the summit. They ascend via the South Col route, today the most popular path to the summit.
1960: North Side Mystery A Chinese expedition claims a first ascent of the mountain's north side, but doubts plague their account. There is no summit shot and scant evidence of the team above the Second Step.
1963: Yankee Victory Jim Whittaker becomes the first American to summit, on May 1. Three weeks later, his teammates, who include Barry Bishop, pioneer the West Ridge route. Bishop loses his toes and the tips of his little fingers.
1975: First Lady of Everest Japanese climber Junko Tabei is the first woman to reach the summit. The same year, a British team led by Chris Bonington climbs the Southwest Face.
1978: No Air Apparent Tyrolean superclimbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler become the first to summit the mountain without using supplementary oxygen.
1996: Death Zone Debacle Eight climbers die in a single storm, among them top guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Frostbitten climber Beck Weathers survives the ordeal. Jon Krakauer's best seller Into Thin Air prompts a public debate over what went wrong. A total of 15 people die during the 1996 season.
1999: The Mountain Gets Even Taller Scientists again measure the mountain and say it's actually 29,035 feet tall — 7 feet higher than previously recorded.
2003: The Oldest Oldest person ever to summit Everest, Yuichiro Miura of Japan, makes it to the top on May 22. He's 70 years old.