Sir Edmund Hillary autograph Zealand mountaineer first to climb Mount Everest

Description

Sir Edmund Hillary autographed index card. Zealand mountaineer who with his team was the first to climb Mount Everest May 29th, 1953.
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary KG ONZ KBE was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt.
Sir Edmund Hillary was born in 1919 and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. It was in New Zealand that he became interested in mountain climbing. Although he made his living as a beekeeper, he climbed mountains in New Zealand, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas, where he climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet. By this time, Hillary was ready to confront the world’s highest mountain.
he expedition reached the South Peak on May, 1953 but all but two of the climbers who had come this far were forced to turn back by exhaustion at the high altitude. At last, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a native Nepalese climber who had participated in five previous Everest trips, were the only members of the party able to make the final assault on the summit.
Sir Edmund’s life was darkened by personal tragedy. In 1975, his wife Louise and their daughter, Belinda, were killed in a plane crash while en route to join Hillary in the village of Phaphlu, where he was helping to build a hospital. He continued to occupy himself with environmental causes and humanitarian work on the behalf of the Nepalese people for the rest of his life. Sir Edmund was named by
Time
magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century. He died at home in New Zealand at the age of 88, mourned by his countrymen and by legions of admirers around the world.