Which 1953 expedition first reached the summit of Mount Everest, according to the accepted historical record?

The 1953 British expedition first reached Mount Everest’s summit according to the accepted historical record.

On 29 May 1953, New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit as members of the expedition led by John Hunt. They used the South Col route in Nepal and Tibet’s border region, climbing from high camps established during the expedition. The pair spent only a short time at the summit before descending safely.

The achievement was announced on 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and became a major international event. Hillary and Tenzing are jointly credited; neither was officially described as having climbed “first” ahead of the other. Earlier attempts, including George Mallory and Andrew Irvine’s 1924 expedition, reached great heights but did not provide confirmed evidence of a successful summit.

Everest is called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet. Its official height is commonly given as 8,848.86 metres, based on a 2020 Nepal-China measurement.