Fifty years ago this month, Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzig Norgay became the first humans to stand on top of the world, the 29,035-foot summit of Mt. Everest.
For the 33-year-old beekeeper from New Zealand–soon to be known as Sir Edmund–the climb climaxed an adventure that had begun more than 30 years before when the first British expedition set out to conquer Everest in 1921.
As Hillary and Norgay surveyed the world on May 29, 1953, they did not stand alone in extending mankind’s grasp. Their achievement represented one of several peaks in an unmatched era of record breaking and barrier busting.
In the two decades after World War II, man broke the sound barrier and the 4-minute mile. Humans reached the top of the planet and the bottom of the sea. Two Americans took turns raising the land-speed record to more than 600 m.p.h., another American high-jumped more than 7 feet and the pole vault entered the space age.
It was a time when the Olympic motto “citius, altius, fortius” (swifter, higher, stronger) reached an apotheosis in the Himalayas, a dirt running track in England, and the salt flats in Utah.
When Chuck Yeager piloted his Bell X-1 jet through the sound barrier high above the California desert on Oct. 14, 1947, news of his feat was embargoed for months due to national security concerns. In future years, however, exploits of speed and height were celebrated in song, knighthood and on the covers of magazines.
The most honored athletic feat was Roger Bannister’s breaking of the 4-minute mile May 6, 1954, in Oxford, England. Long thought beyond human capabilities, the 4-minute mile was a magic phrase at midcentury. Bannister, a medical student and graduate of Oxford, meticulously planned his race and, with the aid of two pacemakers, ran with a blend of “fear and pride” to a world record 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
Less than two months later, Australian John Landy lowered the record to 3:58.0, setting up the first meeting between two sub-4-minute milers at the Empire Games later that summer in Vancouver. It was called “The Mile of the Century.”
Few athletic events have been as eagerly anticipated as the Bannister-Landy showdown. The race matched the hype as Bannister caught Landy on the final straightaway, winning in 3:58.8. Landy ran 3:59.6, marking the first time two men had beaten 4 minutes.
Two years later Charlie Dumas became the first to clear 7 feet in the high jump, but a more spectacular record climb ignited in the early 1960s.
Using newly developed fiberglass poles, Americans John Uelses, Brian Sternberg and John Pennel catapulted the pole vault record past both the 16- and 17-foot barriers in a stunning 17-month assault in 1962 and ’63.
A very different level was reached Jan. 23, 1960 as U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard slowly lowered the bathyscape Trieste nearly 7 miles into the waters of the western Pacific. When the Trieste finally stopped, it rested at the bottom of the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep, close to 36,000 feet underwater, the deepest point on Earth.
“In reaching this place [Walsh and Piccard] did more than demonstrate effective engineering or man’s ability to conquer millions of pounds of pressure,” Daron Jones wrote many years later. “They scaled one of the epic myths of mankind, the very place Dante, Shakespeare and Byron used as a frame of reference for the ultimate extreme of mystery, vastness and wonder of the human soul.”
At its essence, however, the early 1960s were about speed. In an era of hot rods and muscle cars, the fastest show on Earth roared to life on a dry lakebed in western Utah.
On the Bonneville salt flats, Craig Breedlove of California and Art Arfons of Ohio engaged in a dazzling desert duel in pursuit of the land speed record.
Breedlove, in his “Spirit of America” (which sits today in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry), and Arfons in his “Green Monster” powered the land speed mark past 450, 500 and 550 m.p.h., until Breedlove hit 600.6 m.p.h. in November 1965.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys captured the romance of Breedlove’s record chase with his song “Spirit of America.” He called Breedlove’s vehicle “a jet without wings” and “the king of our cars.”
Time and attention, however, were running out for Breedlove and the other barrier breakers as by the late 1960s the American-Soviet race for the moon commanded headlines and imaginations. Speed records seemed old-fashioned when astronauts would be returning to Earth at 24,000 m.p.h. from what Apollo 15’s David Scott called “exploration at its greatest.”
At the start of the 21st Century, there are no more travelers to the moon or to Challenger Deep. With the world record for the mile at 3:43.13, who talks about Bannister and Landy?
When Andy Green of Britain broke the sound barrier on land, traveling 760 m.p.h in 1997, he received little of the acclaim afforded Breedlove and Arfons.
Yet one name from that age of heroes continues to stand tall. Hillary’s conquest of Everest remains the ultimate earthly challenge. More than 1,200 climbers have followed Hillary to the mountain’s summit and 175 have died trying. Tourists are willing to spend up to $65,000 on Everest expeditions.
Hillary, who at 83 calls himself “a rough old New Zealander,” refused to rest on his worldwide laurels. He was the first atop three other Himalayan peaks, explored Antarctica and tested camping equipment for Sears.
In time he came to view Everest not as the summit of his life but a stepping stone to the higher ground of generosity and good works. He has helped build schools, hospitals and bridges in the poorest Sherpa villages of Nepal and aided the restoration of monasteries.
“As I look back after 50 years,” Hillary wrote in National Geographic, “getting to the top of Everest seems less important . . . than other steps I’ve taken along the way–steps to improve the lives of my Sherpa friends in Nepal and to protect the culture and beauty of the Himalaya.”
In breadth and content, Sir Edmund Hillary’s life has matched the mountain he mastered.
