Who Was The First Person To Reach The Summit Of Mount Everest?

Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander by birth, is given the credit.  He and a local man, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit simultaneously on 29 May 1953.  For years afterwards they were both reluctant to say exactly which of them had actually set foot on the summit first.  Both were adamant that they could not have achieved this feat with the help of the other, anyway, in making the final assault on the summit.

Eventually they both confessed that it was Hillary who actually got onto the summit first.

Some people strongly suspect that the actual first person to reach the summit may have been a Englishman, George Mallory.  He led an expedition to Everest in 1924.  Jointly with another Englishman (Sandy Irvine), Mallory was last seen alive from a distance, at the base of the final ascent to the summit.  Mallory and Irvine were lost from view forever by a sudden snow shower.

Mallory's body was found in May 1999, on the slopes of Everest at 27,000 feet up (about 2000 feet short of the summit).  On his expedition he was carrying a camera which has never been found.  Its lost film could confirm another whether Mallory or Irvine made it to the top.

Mallory is the mountaineer who famously snapped at a journalist, when asked why he wanted so badly to climb Everest, "Because it is there."