A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On June 2, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at age 27 during a ceremony in London’s Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.
And headlines in newspapers around the world noted the event.
The queen shared top billing, though, with a couple of adventurers, as it was announced that Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal had become the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
More on the Queen Elizabeth II later, but the first ascent of Mount Everest gets its day in the spotlight and in the archives. Because Hillary was subject to the crown, the announced summit was said to have added luster to the festivities.
One of the young queen’s first official acts was to knight him for his feat.
“KATMANDU, NEPAL — The British Union Jack waved Tuesday where man never had set foot before — atop 29,002-foot Mount Everest,” the news report read.
Hillary and Norgay, his Sherpa guide, had reached the summit on Friday, May 29, and had planted the British flag. The support expedition, on receiving a signal from the pair that all was well, dispatched a runner to Katmandu to relay the word to the world. It took three days for the runner to get the word to the queen.
Hillary went on to summit numerous other peaks and complete a variety of expedition. In later years, he said he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit.
Hillary wrote of the pair’s final steps to the top of the world: “Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest.
“Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed,” Hillary noted.
There are even reports that Hillary and his family visited Utah several times, and hiked in the High Uintas.
More on Hillary:
“Everest’s Sir Edmund Hillary dies”
“Everest conqueror mourned in Utah”
“Utahns on Everest expedition looking for evidence of a summit 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary”
“Hillary recalls moments standing on top of world”
A final note: On this day in 2022, Queen Elizabeth II drew wild cheers from a crowd of tens of thousands as she carefully stepped on to the Buckingham Palace balcony at the start of four days of celebrations of her 70 years on the throne.
Her reign in Britain would end with her death three months later.
