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Tenzing Norgay

First confirmed to summit Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953.

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Tenzing Norgay was a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa mountaineer who, with Edmund Hillary, was the first confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953.[1] He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Darjeeling on 9 May 1986 at age 71.[2]

Last updated 2026-10-01 from the source article.

Life and work

He ran away from home twice in his teens, first to Kathmandu and later to Darjeeling, India.[3] Norgay later revealed that Hillary was first in his 1955 autobiography, which was ghost-written by James Ramsay Ullman.[4] The head lama and founder of Rongbuk Monastery, Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, advised that the child originally called Namgyal Wangdi should have his name changed.[5] When Eric Shipton was recruiting for the 1935 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition, Norgay's friend Ang Tharkay, a Sherpa sirdar, recommended him after two other candidates failed medical tests, giving the 20-year-old his first chance to join an Everest expedition.[6]

A new climbing altitude record was set on 28 May 1952 when Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay reached approximately 8595 m on the southeast ridge.[7]

What the cited sources add

The same article notes that Norgay had climbed to within 200 metres of the summit with the Swiss, making him the most experienced mountaineer on the British expedition.[8] An Observer article from 2000 states that Norgay was born in a place called Tsa-chu, near the mountain Makalu.[9] That article also explains that Norgay described himself as "born in the womb of Nepal and raised in the lap of India" to avoid political embarrassment.[9] The Himalayan Club awarded him its Tiger Medal for high-altitude work after his third Everest expedition as a porter in 1938.[5]

The Soviet Union conferred upon Norgay the honorary title "Merited Master of Sport of the USSR" on 1 March 1963, which made him the initial foreign recipient of that award.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Norgay, "Touching My Father's Soul: In the Footsteps of Sherpa Tenzing", Ebury Press, 2002; "Tenzing Norgay and the Sherpas of Everest — Sherpa Tenzing Norgay Nepalese Mountaineer- Information on Tenzing Norgay", tenzingasianholidays.com; Douglas, "Secret past of the man who conquered Everest", The Observer, 24 December 2000; Morris, "The Conquerors HILLARY & TENZING", 14 June 1999; "TIME 100 Persons of The Century", 6 June 1999 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Norgay, "Touching My Father's Soul: a Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest", HarperSanFrancisco, 2002, p. XVI; "Tenzing Norgay: Interesting facts about the Mountaineer's Life", India Today; "TENZING NORKAY, 72, IS DEAD: CLIMBED EVEREST WITH HILLARY", The New York Times, 10 May 1986 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tenzing gets a new name", The Times of India, 28 March 2009; Ortner, Sherry B., "Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering", Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 112; Tenzing & Ullman (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gill 2017, p. 188; Tenzing & Ullman p. 268 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hansen, Peter H., "Tenzing Norgay [Sherpa Tenzing] (1914–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Shipton, "That Untravelled World: An Autobiography", Mountaineers Books, 24 February 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tenzing Norgay GM", Imaging Everest; "The Himalayan Database", n.d., p. ???; Tenzing & Ullman (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Burke, "Everest anniversary: Tenzing Norgay's grandson calls for 'gesture' from Britain", The Guardian, 29 May 2013. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  9. Douglas, "Secret past of the man who conquered Everest", The Observer, 24 December 2000. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  10. Wikipedia, "Tenzing Norgay" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Highest Russian Award for Shri Tenzing Norgay: Soviet Union Honours Everest Hero", Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 3 March 1963 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Tenzing Norgay (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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