Hillary, Edmund (Percival) (1919–2008)

New Zealand mountaineer. In 1953, with Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay (1914–1986), he reached the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the first to climb the world's highest peak. As a member of the Commonwealth Transantarctic Expedition 1957–58, he was the first person since R F Scott to reach the South Pole overland, on 3 January 1958. He was knighted in 1953.