TIM MAGUIRE

Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán is 79 years old today.

At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand
and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, become the first
known explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest,
which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point
on earth.       

News of their achievement broke around the world on June 2, the
day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and Britons hailed it as a
good omen for their country’s future.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

On this day in 1988, Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, became
the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest,
which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth.

Allison, a member of the Northwest American Everest Expedition, climbed the Himalayan peak using the southeast ridge route.

At least 168 climbers and support staff died in attempts to reach
the top of Everest in the 20th century.

SANDY KOZEL

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963)

Photographer and filmmaker Jimmy Chin.

The sock, with Irvine’s name, was found along with a boot
and a foot, emerging from the ice of the Central Rongbuk 
Glacier.

Oxford student Andrew “Sandy” Irvine.

In the last photo taken of the mountaineers, George Mallory
(left) and Sandy Irvine prepare to leave the North Col of
Everest in June 1924.