Sir Edmund Hillary, 1919–2008
Posted 11 January 2008 // Helen Rickerby
Portrait of Edmund Hillary
New Zealand has lost its favourite hero with the death of Sir Edmund Hillary.
Sir Ed, as he was fondly known, gained worldwide fame after he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to scale Mt Everest, the world’s highest peak, in 1953. In Te Ara’s entry on mountaineering, you can watch a video of Sir Ed describing the last stages of their ascent.
Drawn to the people of the Himalayas, Hillary returned there in the 1960s to help build schools and health facilities for the Sherpas of Nepal. Hillary was also the first person have stood at both the north and south poles.
It’s a measure of Sir Ed’s achievements that he features frequently in Te Ara, in entries on New Zealand mountaineering, New Zealand mountaineers overseas, Auckland’s sport and leisure and post-war New Zealanders, to name just a few.
Te Ara wrote an interesting post today on Sir Edmund Hillary.