… of Nepal and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand become the first ever to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,035 feet/8,850 meters) 56 years ago today. The mountain is called Chomolungma (“goddess mother of the world”) in Tibet and Sagarmatha (“goddess of the sky”) in Nepal. It’s growing/moving about 6 cm a year.
George Everest (1790-1866) was the British Surveyor General of India (1830-1843). (He pronounced his name E-ver-est, not Ev-er-est as we know it.) Everest’s successor named the mountain for the surveyor.