Question 1

True or false: Hillary and Tenzing took a selfie at the summit using a camera strapped to a hiking pole.

Accepted Answer

False. Hillary took photos of Tenzing on the summit, but Tenzing had never used a camera, so no summit photo of Hillary exists.

Question 2

True or false: Tenzing Norgay later admitted he and Hillary ran out of oxygen just 100 feet from the top.

Accepted Answer

False. They had plenty of oxygen. Tenzing later noted their oxygen sets worked perfectly, and they even had some left over.

Question 3

True or false: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had to spend the night in a snow cave just below the summit.

Accepted Answer

False. They reached the summit at 11:30 a.m. and descended to Camp IV the same day. No snow cave bivouac occurred.

Question 4

True or false: The news of the successful climb reached the world first via a pre-arranged coded message to The Times.

Accepted Answer

True. The Times had exclusive rights. The coded message read 'Snow conditions bad...' to hide the success until the Queen was told.

Question 5

True or false: Tenzing Norgay had previously attempted Everest from the Tibetan side in 1952 with a Swiss expedition.

Accepted Answer

True. Tenzing was part of the 1952 Swiss expedition that reached about 28,200 feet from the south, setting a record before the 1953 success.

Question 6

True or false: The 1953 expedition was actually the ninth British attempt to climb Mount Everest.

Accepted Answer

True. The British had made eight previous expeditions between 1921 and 1952, making 1953 the ninth official attempt.

Question 7

True or false: Hillary and Tenzing were part of a larger team that included a man who later became a James Bond actor.

Accepted Answer

True. Charles Evans, a team member, was the uncle of actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in the 1980s.

Question 8

True or false: The 1953 expedition was funded entirely by a single donation from a British chocolate company.

Accepted Answer

False. Funding came from the Joint Himalayan Committee, the Royal Geographical Society, and private donations, not a single chocolate company.

First Successful Climb of Mount Everest (1953) Trivia Questions