The late, great Edmund Hillary was born on 20 July 1919. Here's what Ed did when he reached the summit of Everest:"...Then Tenzing stepped up and Hillary took a photograph of him. Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood literally on top of the world. It didn't enter Hillary's head to have his photograph taken.
"As far as I knew, he [Tenzing] had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how".
He looked around for signs of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who had gone to the mountain 30 years before and who, some people believe, had reached the summit. He found no sign of them. Tenzing dug holes for food, small gifts to the gods.
Having paid their respects to the highest mountain in the world, they then urinated on it. Hillary heralded the ascent with the laconic style that made him a New Zealand archetype. Returning from the summit, he greeted a fellow New Zealand member of the expedition George Lowe, with the iconic words: "Well George, we’ve knocked the bastard off."
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