Did george Malorry and Irvine get to the top of Mount Everest before Sir Edmund Hillary?
In 1953, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach top of Mount Everest On June 8, 1924, two members of a British expedition, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, attempted the summit. Famous for his retort to the press—”because it’s there”—when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory had already failed twice at reaching the summit. The two men were last spotted “going strong” for the top until the clouds perpetually swirling around Everest engulfed them. They then vanished. Mallory’s body was not found for another 75 years, in May 1999. No evidence was found on his body—such as a camera containing photos of the summit, or a diary entry recording their time of arrival at the summit—to clear up the mystery of whether these two Everest pioneers made it to the top before the mountain killed them.
