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Edmund Hillary

New Zealand mountaineer and philanthropist (1919–2008)

  • Fame78.0
  • Momentum13.5
  • New Zealand rank#4
Source-basedStable
  • Fame78.0
  • Momentum13.5
  • New Zealand rank#4
  • Historical Figures rank#33
  • Wikipedia97.9K
Lived 1919–2008, aged 89New Zealand
New Zealand flagNew ZealandHistorical Figures
  • Wikipedia
    121 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Rank in New Zealand
    #4
    Historical Figures
  • Era
    1919–2008
    Aged 89
  • Known for
    Beyond The Edge
    2013
Summary
Updated 2026-06-21

He stood on top of the world first. On 29 May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay confirmed what no one had before: humans could reach Everest's summit and come back down.

Biography

About

Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper's son, caught the mountaineering bug in secondary school and made his first serious climb in 1939 on Mount Ollivier. World War II interrupted—he navigated for the Royal New Zealand Air Force and was wounded in an accident—but by 1951 he was back on big peaks, joining a British reconnaissance of Everest and a failed attempt on Cho Oyu the next year. The ninth British expedition in 1953, led by John Hunt, put him and Tenzing Norgay on the summit in May. Five years later he drove tractors to the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, an…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary
said
On my expedition there was no way that you would have left a man under a rock to die. It simply would not have happened. It would have been a disaster from our point of view.
— As quoted in The Tribune (India) (29 May 2006)
Edmund Hillary
said
I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top.
— As quoted in The Age (25 May 2006)
Edmund Hillary
said
Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
— As quoted in Wise Guys : Brilliant Thoughts and Big Talk from Real Men (2005) by Allan Zullo, p. 5
Edmund Hillary
said
Having just paid our respects to the highest mountain in the world, I then had no choice but to urinate on it.
— View from the Summit Simon and Schuster (2000) pp 15-16 [orig pub 1999]. Also (slightly misquoted) in Thinker, Failure, Soldier, Jailer
Edmund Hillary
said
It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge.
— "Adventure's End" in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) edited by George Plimpton, p. 85
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Deep cuts

Era & geography

No era information yet.
Deep cuts

Legacy

No legacy summary indexed yet.
Where to find them

Platforms

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
78.0
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum13.5
Historical27.5
Now attention29.9
Source confidence65.0
Completeness75.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
#4
Category rank
#33
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence