#memory
#History
Tenzing Norgay.
29 May is the birth anniversary of Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986).
Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, and Edmund Hillary) were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (8848.86 m) on 29 May, 1953.
Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was among the most famous mountain climbers in history. He was named by the Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Tenzing Norgay was born in Tshechu, presently in Tibet Autonomous Region, China. He grew up in a peasant family in Khumbu in Nepal. His exact date of birth is not known but he decided to celebrate May 29 as his birthday, as this was the date he climbed Everest.
Tenzing Norgay’s original name was Namgyal Wangdi, but as a child his name was changed on the advice of a lama.( Norgay means fortunate). Tenzing Norgay ran away to Kathmandu twice as a boy, and eventually settled in the Sherpa community in Too Song Busti in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India.
Tenzing got his first opportunity to join an Everest expedition in 1935, when he was employed by Eric Shipton, leader of the British expedition. Later, Tenzing took part as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s. He also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent, and for a time in the early 1940s he lived in what is now Pakistan, in the Princely State of Chitral. During this period, he scaled Nanda Devi, which he described as the most difficult climb he ever took.
In 1947, he took part in an unsuccessful summit attempt of Everest but it ended when a strong storm at 22,000 ft (6,700 m) pounded them.
In 1952, he took part in two Swiss expeditions led by Raymond Lambert, the first serious attempts to climb Everest from the southern (Nepali) side, during which he and Lambert reached the then record height of 28,215 ft (8,599 m).
In 1953, he took part in John Hunt’s British expedition, his seventh expedition to Everest. After failure of the first pair on 26 May who had reached the South Summit, coming within 300 vertical feet (91 m) of the summit, Hunt directed Tenzing and Hillary to go for the summit.
Snow and wind held the pair up at the South Col for two days. They set out on 28 May and pitched a tent at 27,900 feet (8,500 m). On 29 May, they reached Everest’s 8848.86 m summit, the highest point on Earth, at 11:30 a.m. They spent only about fifteen minutes at the summit. Hillary took the famous photo of Tenzing posing with his ice-axe, but since Tenzing had never used a camera, Hillary’s ascent went unrecorded.
Hillary and Hunt were knighted by Queen Elizabeth, while Tenzing received the George Medal from the British Government.
In 1953, King Tribhuvan of Nepal also presented the Order of the Star of Nepal, 1st Class.
In 1959, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award of India.
Tenzing joined the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling from its inception and later became Director of field training.
In 1978, he founded the Tenzing Norgay Adventures, a company providing trekking adventures in the Himalayas. The company is now run by his son Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who himself reached the summit of Everest in 1996. In 1978, the Government of India created the Tenzing Norgay Award in his honour.
Tenzing died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, in 1986, at age 71. He was cremated in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, his favorite haunt.
In January 2008, the Lukla Airport was renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport.
