Newspaper Mount Everest Climb Retro Antique Hillary News Chronicle History Made

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Newspaper Mount Everest Climb Retro Antique Hillary News Chronicle History Made:
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Mount Everest Conquered
NewspaperReplica Newspaper Daily Chronicle from Tuesday 3rd June 1953The Cover Story is how Edmund Hillary became the first man to climb mount everestWith the Amazing Headline \"THE CROWNING GLORY : EVEREST IS CLIMBED\"10 PagesIn Excellent ConditionA2 Size Broadsheet - 41cm x 58cmMagnificent KeepsakeSouvenirtoRemember a great human achievement
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The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication on 17 October 1960,[1] being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, EnglandThe Daily Chronicle was founded in 1872. Purchased by Edward Lloyd for £30,000 in 1876, it achieved a high reputation under the editorship of Henry Massingham and Robert Donald, who took charge in 1904. Owned by the Cadbury family, with Laurence Cadbury as chairman,[2] the News Chronicle was formed by the merger of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle on 2 June 1930,[3] with Walter Layton appointed as editorial directorWith the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the paper took an anti-Franco stance and sent two correspondents, Arthur Koestler (to Málaga)[4] and, later, Geoffrey Cox[4] (to Madrid) in 1936-37. The paper\'s editorial staff took an active part in campaigning for the release of Koestler, who was captured by Franco\'s forces at the fall of Malaga and was in imminent danger of being executed.[5]
Following Koestler\'s release, the paper sent him to Mandatory Palestine, then convulsed by the Arab revolt. In a series of articles in the paper, Koestler urged adoption of the Peel Commission\'s recommendation for partition of Palestine, as \"the only practical way of ending the bloodshed\". In his autobiography Koestler notes that en route to Palestine he had stopped in Athens and had clandestine meetings with Communists and Liberals opposing the then Metaxas dictatorship, but the News Chronicle refused to publish his resulting strongly worded anti-Metaxas articles.[6]
In 1956, the News Chronicle opposed the UK\'s military support of Israel in invading the Suez canal zone, a decision which cost it circulation. According to Geoffrey Goodman, a journalist on the newspaper at the time, it was \"one of British journalism\'s prime casualties of the Suez crisis\"In 17 October 1960, the News Chronicle \"finally folded, inappropriately, into the grip\"[7] of the right-wing Daily Mail despite having a circulation of over a million.[1] The News Chronicle\'s editorial position was considered at the time to be in broad support of the British Liberal Party, which was in marked contrast to that of the right-wing Daily Mail. As a result the News Chronicle ceased publication and the title was absorbed by the Daily Mail.[3]
As part of the same takeover, the London evening paper The Star was incorporated into the Evening News.In 17 October 1960, the News Chronicle \"finally folded, inappropriately, into the grip\"[7] of the right-wing Daily Mail despite having a circulation of over a million.[1] The News Chronicle\'s editorial position was considered at the time to be in broad support of the British Liberal Party, which was in marked contrast to that of the right-wing Daily Mail. As a result the News Chronicle ceased publication and the title was absorbed by the Daily Mail.[3]
As part of the same takeover, the London evening paper The Star was incorporated into the Evening News.Mount Everest (Tibetan/Sherpa: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ, Chomolungma;[4][5] Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰, Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng;[6] Nepali: सगरमाथा, Sagarmāthā[7]) is the Earth\'s highest mountain, located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. Its peak is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft) above sea level[8] and the 5th furthest point from the centre of the Earth.[9] The international border between China and Nepal runs across the precise summit point. Its massif includes neighboring peaks Lhotse, 8,516 m (27,940 ft); Nuptse, 7,855 m (25,771 ft) and Changtse, 7,580 m (24,870 ft).
In 1856, the Great Trigonometric Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 29,002 ft (8,840 m). The current official height of 8,848 m (29,029 ft) as recognized by Nepal and China was established by a 1955 Indian survey and subsequently confirmed by a Chinese survey in 1975. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. Waugh named the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest. Although Tibetans had called Everest \"Chomolungma\" for centuries, Waugh was unaware of this because Tibet and Nepal were closed to foreigners at the time thus preventing any attempts to obtain local names.
Mount Everest attracts many highly experienced mountaineers as well as capable climbers willing to hire professional guides. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the standard route) and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as altitude sickness, weather, wind as well as significant objective hazards from avalanches and the Khumbu Icefall. While the overwhelming majority of climbers will use bottled oxygen in order to reach the top, some climbers have summitted Everest without supplemental oxygen.
The first recorded efforts to reach Everest\'s summit were made by British mountaineers. With Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 m (22,970 ft) on the North Col, the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 8,320 m (27,300 ft) marking the first time a human had climbed above 8,000 m (26,247 ft). Tragedy struck on the descent from the North col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. The 1924 expedition resulted in the greatest mystery on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on June 8 but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again until Mallory\'s body was found in 1999 at 8,155 m (26,755 ft) on the North face. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m (28,199 ft) the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition.Mount (Chomolungma)
珠穆朗玛峰 (Zhumulangma Feng)
सगरमाथा (Sagarmatha)
Everest ali 2011298.jpg
Elevation 8,848 m (29,029 ft)[1]
Ranked 1st
Prominence 8,848 m (29,029 ft)
Ranked 1st
(Notice special definition for Everest)
Listing Seven Summits
Eight-thousander
Country high point
UltraIn 1802, the British began the Great Trigonometric Survey of India to determine the location and names of the world\'s highest mountains. Starting in southern India, the survey teams moved northward using giant theodolites, each weighing 500 kg (1,100 lb) and requiring 12 men to carry, to measure heights as accurately as possible. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s, but Nepal was unwilling to allow the British to enter the country because of suspicions of political aggression and possible annexation. Several requests by the surveyors to enter Nepal were turned down.[10]
The British were forced to continue their observations from Terai, a region south of Nepal which is parallel to the Himalayas. Conditions in Terai were difficult because of torrential rains and malaria. Three survey officers died from malaria while two others had to retire due to failing health.[10]
Nonetheless, in 1847, the British continued the Great Trigonometric survey and began detailed observations of the Himalayan peaks from observation stations up to 240 km (150 mi) away. Weather restricted work to the last three months of the year. In November 1847, Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India made several observations from the Sawajpore station located in the Eastern end of the Himalayas. Kangchenjunga was then considered the highest peak in the world, and with interest he noted a peak beyond it, about 230 km (140 mi) away. John Armstrong, one of Waugh\'s officials, also saw the peak from a location farther west and called it peak \"b\". Waugh would later write that the observations indicated that peak \"b\" was higher than Kangchenjunga, but given the great distance of the observations, closer observations were required for verification. The following year, Waugh sent a survey official back to Terai to make closer observations of peak \"b\", but clouds thwarted all attempts.[10]
In 1849, Waugh dispatched James Nicolson to the area, who made two observations from Jirol, 190 km (120 mi) away. Nicolson then took the largest theodolite and headed east, obtaining over 30 observations from five different locations, with the closest being 174 km (108 mi) from the peak.[10]
Nicolson retreated to Patna on the Ganges to perform the necessary calculations based on his observations. His raw data gave an average height of 9,200 m (30,200 ft) for peak \"b\", but this did not consider light refraction, which distorts heights. However, the number clearly indicated, that peak \"b\" was higher than Kangchenjunga. Then, Nicolson contracted malaria and was forced to return home without finishing his calculations. Michael Hennessy, one of Waugh\'s assistants, had begun designating peaks based on roman numerals, with Kangchenjunga named Peak IX, while peak \"b\" now became known as Peak XV.[10]
In 1852, stationed at the survey headquarters in Dehradun, Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician and surveyor from Bengal, was the first to identify Everest as the world\'s highest peak, using trigonometric calculations based on Nicolson\'s measurements.[11] An official announcement that Peak XV was the highest was delayed for several years as the calculations were repeatedly verified. Waugh began work on Nicolson\'s data in 1854, and along with his staff spent almost two years working on the calculations, having to deal with the problems of light refraction, barometric pressure, and temperature over the vast distances of the observations. Finally, in March 1856 he announced his findings in a letter to his deputy in Calcutta. Kangchenjunga was declared to be 28,156 ft (8,582 m), while Peak XV was given the height of 29,002 ft (8,840 m). Waugh concluded that Peak XV was \"most probably the highest in the world\".[10] Peak XV (measured in feet) was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft (8,839.2 m) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft (8,839.8 m) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 m) was nothing more than a rounded estimate.[12]
NamingKangshung Face (the east face) as seen from orbit
While the survey wanted to preserve local names if possible (e.g. Kangchenjunga and Dhaulagiri), Waugh argued that he could not find any commonly used local name. Waugh\'s search for a local name was hampered by Nepal and Tibet\'s exclusion of foreigners. Many local names existed, including \"Deodungha\" (\"Holy Mountain\") in Darjeeling[13] and the Tibetan \"Chomolungma\", which appeared on a 1733 map published in Paris by the French geographer D\'Anville. In the late 19th century, many European cartographers further believed (incorrectly) that a native name for the mountain was \"Gaurisankar\".[14] (Gauri Sankar is a mountain between Kathmandu and Everest.)
Waugh argued that because there were many local names, it would be difficult to favour one name over all others, so he decided that Peak XV should be named after George Everest, his predecessor as Surveyor General of India.[10][15] He wrote:
I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor, Colonel Sir George Everest, to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. But here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal. In the meantime the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign...a name whereby it may be known among citizens and geographers and become a household word among civilized nations.[16]
George Everest opposed the name suggested by Waugh and told the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 that Everest could not be written in Hindi nor pronounced by \"the native of India\". Waugh\'s proposed name prevailed despite the objections, and in 1865, the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted Mount Everest as the name for the highest mountain in the world.[10] The modern pronunciation of Everest /ˈɛvərɨst, ˈɛvrɨst/[17] is different from Sir George\'s pronunciation of his surname, which was /ˈiːvrɨst/ (EEV-rist).[18]
The official Tibetan name for Mount Everest is Qomolangma (Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ, Wylie: Jo mo glang ma, ZYPY: Qomolangma /ˈtʃoʊmoʊˌlɑːŋmə/, often spelled Chomolungma; literally \"Holy Mother\"). The official Chinese name is Zhumulangma (simplified Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰; traditional Chinese: 珠穆朗瑪峰; pinyin: Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng; literally \"Qomolangma Peak\") although it is sometimes known as Shengmu Feng (simplified Chinese: 圣母峰; traditional Chinese: 聖母峰; pinyin: Shèngmǔ Fēng; literally \"Holy Mother Peak\"). In the early 1960s, the Nepalese government coined a Nepali name for Mount Everest, Sagarmāthā (सगरमाथा),[19] allegedly to supplant the Tibetan name among the locals, which the Nepali government felt was \"not acceptable\".[citation needed]
In 2002, the Chinese People\'s Daily newspaper published an article making a case against the use of \"Mount Everest\" for the mountain in English, insisting that it should be referred to as \"Mount Qomolangma\", based on the local Tibetan name. The article argued that British colonialists did not \"first discover\" the mountain, as it had been known to the Tibetans and mapped by the Chinese as \"Qomolangma\" since at least 1719.[20] However, Waugh had argued that because there were many local names, it would be difficult to favour one name over all others.[10][15]
Early expeditionsAn aerial view of the southern side of the Mount Everest massif. Mount Everest\'s summit is seen immediately above Lhotse\'s south face (centre), which is connected to the long ridge of Nuptse (left, in shade).
In 1885, Clinton Thomas Dent, president of the Alpine Club, suggested that climbing Mount Everest was possible in his book Above the Snow Line.[21]
The northern approach to the mountain was discovered by George Mallory and Guy Bullock on the initial 1921 British Reconnaissance Expedition. It was an exploratory expedition not equipped for a serious attempt to climb the mountain. With Mallory leading (and thus becoming the first European to set foot on Everest\'s flanks) they climbed the North Col to an altitude of 7,005 metres (22,982 ft). From there, Mallory espied a route to the top, but the party was unprepared for the great task of climbing any further and descended.
The British returned for a 1922 expedition. George Finch (\"The other George\") climbed using oxygen for the first time. He ascended at a remarkable speed—290 metres (951 ft) per hour, and reached an altitude of 8,320 m (27,300 ft), the first time a human climbed higher than 8,000 m. This feat was entirely lost on the British climbing establishment—except for its \"unsporting\" nature. Mallory and Col. Felix Norton made a second unsuccessful attempt. Mallory was faulted for leading a group down from the North Col which got caught in an avalanche. Mallory was pulled down too, but seven native porters were killed.
The next expedition was in 1924. The initial attempt by Mallory and Bruce was aborted when weather conditions precluded the establishment of Camp VI. The next attempt was that of Norton and Somervell, who climbed without oxygen and in perfect weather, traversing the North Face into the Great Couloir. Norton managed to reach 8,550 m (28,050 ft), though he ascended only 30 m (98 ft) or so in the last hour. Mallory rustled up oxygen equipment for a last-ditch effort. He chose young Andrew Irvine as his partner.
On 8 June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt on the summit via the North Col/North Ridge/Northeast Ridge route from which they never returned. On 1 May 1999, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory\'s body on the North Face in a snow basin below and to the west of the traditional site of Camp VI. Controversy has raged in the mountaineering community whether one or both of them reached the summit 29 years before the confirmed ascent (and of course, safe descent) of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
In 1933, Lady Houston, a British millionairess, funded the Houston Everest Flight of 1933, which saw a formation of aircraft led by the Marquess of Clydesdale fly over the summit in an effort to deploy the British Union Flag at the top.[22][23][24]
Early expeditions—such as Bruce\'s in the 1920s and Hugh Ruttledge\'s two unsuccessful attempts in 1933 and 1936—tried to make an ascent of the mountain from Tibet, via the north face. Access was closed from the north to western expeditions in 1950, after the Chinese asserted control over Tibet. In 1950, Bill Tilman and a small party which included Charles Houston, Oscar Houston and Betsy Cowles undertook an exploratory expedition to Everest through Nepal along the route which has now become the standard approach to Everest from the south.[25]
The Swiss expedition of 1952, led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant, was granted permission to attempt a climb from Nepal. The expedition established a route through the Khumbu ice fall and ascended to the South Col at an elevation of 7,986 m (26,201 ft). No attempt at an ascent of Everest was ever under consideration in this case.[26] Raymond Lambert and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were able to reach a height of about 8,595 m (28,199 ft) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record. Tenzing\'s experience was useful when he was hired to be part of the British expedition in 1953.[27]
First successful ascent by Tenzing and HillaryMain article: 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt, returned to Nepal. Hunt selected two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit. The first pair (Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans) came within 100 m (330 ft) of the summit on 26 May 1953, but turned back after running into oxygen problems. As planned, their work in route finding and breaking trail and their caches of extra oxygen were of great aid to the following pair. Two days later, the expedition made its second and final assault on the summit with its second climbing pair, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali sherpa climber from Darjeeling, India. They reached the summit at 11:30 am local time on 29 May 1953 via the South Col Route. At the time, both acknowledged it as a team effort by the whole expedition, but Tenzing revealed a few years later that Hillary had put his foot on the summit first.[28] They paused at the summit to take photographs and buried a few sweets and a small cross in the snow before descending.
News of the expedition\'s success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II\'s coronation, 2 June. Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, Hunt (a Briton) and Hillary (a New Zealander) discovered that they had been promptly knighted in the Order of the British Empire, a KBE, for the ascent. Tenzing, a Nepali sherpa who was a citizen of India, was granted the George Medal by the UK. Hunt was ultimately made a life peer in Britain, while Hillary became a founding member of the Order of New Zealand. Hillary and Tenzing are also nationally recognized in Nepal, where annual ceremonies in schools and offices celebrate their accomplishment.[29]
MeasurementMount Everest from base camp one
The 8,848 m (29,029 ft) height given is officially recognised by Nepal and China,[30] although Nepal is planning a new survey.[31]
In 1856, Andrew Waugh announced Everest (then known as Peak XV) as 29,002 ft (8,840 m) high, after several years of calculations based on observations made by the Great Trigonometric Survey.
The elevation of 8,848 m (29,029 ft) was first determined by an Indian survey in 1955, made closer to the mountain, also using theodolites.[citation needed] It was subsequently reaffirmed by a 1975 Chinese measurement 8,848.13 m (29,029.30 ft).[32] In both cases the snow cap, not the rock head, was measured. In May 1999 an American Everest Expedition, directed by Bradford Washburn, anchored a GPS unit into the highest bedrock. A rock head elevation of 8,850 m (29,035 ft), and a snow/ice elevation 1 m (3 ft) higher, were obtained via this device.[33] Although it has not been officially recognized by Nepal,[34] this figure is widely quoted. Geoid uncertainty casts doubt upon the accuracy claimed by both the 1999 and 2005 surveys.
A detailed photogrammetric map (at a scale of 1:50,000) of the Khumbu region, including the south side of Mount Everest, was made by Erwin Schneider as part of the 1955 International Himalayan Expedition, which also attempted Lhotse. An even more detailed topographic map of the Everest area was made in the late 1980s under the direction of Bradford Washburn, using extensive aerial photography.[35]
On 9 October 2005, after several months of measurement and calculation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping officially announced the height of Everest as 8,844.43 m (29,017.16 ft) with accuracy of ±0.21 m (0.69 ft). They claimed it was the most accurate and precise measurement to date.[36] This height is based on the actual highest point of rock and not on the snow and ice covering it. The Chinese team also measured a snow/ice depth of 3.5 m (11 ft),[32] which is in agreement with a net elevation of 8,848 m (29,029 ft). The snow and ice thickness varies over time, making a definitive height of the snow cap impossible to determine.
2004 photo mosaic the Himalayas with Makalu and Mount Everest from the International Space Station, Expedition 8.
It is thought that the plate tectonics of the area are adding to the height and moving the summit northeastwards. Two accounts suggest the rates of change are 4 mm (0.16 in) per year (upwards) and 3 to 6 mm (0.12 to 0.24 in) per year (northeastwards),[33][37] but another account mentions more lateral movement (27 mm or 1.1 in),[38] and even shrinkage has been suggested.[39]
Comparisons
The summit of Everest is the point at which the Earth\'s surface reaches the greatest distance above sea level. Several other mountains are sometimes claimed as alternative \"tallest mountains on Earth\". Mauna Kea in Hawaii is tallest when measured from its base;[40] it rises over 10,200 m (33,464.6 ft) when measured from its base on the mid-ocean floor, but only attains 4,205 m (13,796 ft) above sea level.
By the same measure of base to summit, Mount McKinley, in Alaska, is also taller than Everest.[40] Despite its height above sea level of only 6,193.6 m (20,320 ft), Mount McKinley sits atop a sloping plain with elevations from 300 m (980 ft) to 900 m (3,000 ft), yielding a height above base in the range of 5,300 to 5,900 m (17,400 to 19,400 ft); a commonly quoted figure is 5,600 m (18,400 ft).[41] By comparison, reasonable base elevations for Everest range from 4,200 m (13,800 ft) on the south side to 5,200 m (17,100 ft) on the Tibetan Plateau, yielding a height above base in the range of 3,650 to 4,650 m (11,980 to 15,260 ft).[35]
The summit of Chimborazo in Ecuador is 2,168 m (7,113 ft) farther from the Earth\'s centre (6,384.4 km (3,967.1 mi)) than that of Everest (6,382.3 km (3,965.8 mi)), because the Earth bulges at the Equator.[9] This is despite Chimborazo having a peak 6,268 m (20,564.3 ft) above sea level versus Mount Everest\'s 8,848 m (29,028.9 ft).
GeologyClimbers pass by the yellow band
Geologists have subdivided the rocks comprising Mount Everest into three units called \"formations\".[42][43] Each formation is separated from the other by low-angle faults, called \"detachments\", along which they have been thrust over each other. From the summit of Mount Everest to its base these rock units are the Qomolangma Formation, the North Col Formation, and the Rongbuk Formation.
From its summit to the top of the Yellow Band, about 8,600 m (28,000 ft) above sea level, the top of Mount Everest consists of the Qomolangma Formation, which has also been designated as either the Everest Formation or Jolmo Lungama Formation. It consists of grayish to dark gray or white, parallel laminated and bedded, Ordovician limestone inter layered with subordinate beds of recrystallized dolomite with argillaceous laminae and siltstone. Gansser first reported finding microscopic fragments of crinoids in this limestone.[44] Later petrographic analysis of samples of the limestone from near the summit revealed them to be composed of carbonate pellets and finely fragmented remains of trilobites, crinoids, and ostracods. Other samples were so badly sheared and recrystallized that their original constituents could not be determined. A thick, white-weathering thrombolite bed that is 60 m (200 ft) thick comprises the foot of the \"Third Step\", and base of the summit pyramid of Everest. This bed, which crops out starting about 70 m (300 ft) below the summit of Mount Everest, consists of sediments trapped, bound, and cemented by the biofilms of micro-organisms, especially cyanobacteria, in shallow marine waters. The Qomolangma Formation is broken up by several high-angle faults that terminate at the low angle thrust fault, the Qomolangma Detachment. This detachment separates it from the underlying Yellow Band. The lower five meters of the Qomolangma Formation overlying this detachment are very highly deformed.[42][43][45]
The bulk of Mount Everest, between 7,000 and 8,600 m (23,000 and 28,200 ft), consists of the North Col Formation, of which the Yellow Band forms its upper part between 8,200 to 8,600 m (26,900 to 28,200 ft). The Yellow Band consists of intercalated beds of Middle Cambrian diopside-epidote-bearing marble, which weathers a distinctive yellowish brown, and muscovite-biotite phyllite and semischist. Petrographic analysis of marble collected from about 8,300 m (27,200 ft) found it to consist as much as five percent of the ghosts of recrystallized crinoid ossicles. The upper five meters of the Yellow Band lying adjacent to the Qomolangma Detachment is badly deformed. A 5–40 cm (2–16 in) thick fault breccia separates it from the overlying Qomolangma Formation.[42][43][45]
The remainder of the North Col Formation, exposed between 7,000 to 8,200 m (23,000 to 26,900 ft) on Mount Everest, consists of interlayered and deformed schist, phyllite, and minor marble. Between 7,600 and 8,200 m (24,900 and 26,900 ft), the North Col Formation consists chiefly of biotite-quartz phyllite and chlorite-biotite phyllite intercalated with minor amounts of biotite-sericite-quartz schist. Between 7,000 and 7,600 m (23,000 and 24,900 ft), the lower part of the North Col Formation consists of biotite-quartz schist intercalated with epidote-quartz schist, biotite-calcite-quartz schist, and thin layers of quartzose marble. These metamorphic rocks appear to be the result of the metamorphism of Middle to Early Cambrian deep sea flysch composed of interbedded, mudstone, shale, clayey sandstone, calcareous sandstone, graywacke, and sandy limestone. The base of the North Col Formation is a regional thrust fault called the \"Lhotse detachment\".[42][43][45]
Below 7,000 m (23,000 ft), the Rongbuk Formation underlies the North Col Formation and forms the base of Mount Everest. It consists of sillimanite-K-feldspar grade schist and gneiss intruded by numerous sills and dikes of leucogranite ranging in thickness from 1 cm to 1,500 m (0.4 in to 4,900 ft).[43][46] These leucogranites are part of a belt of Late Oligocene–Miocene intrusive rocks known as the Higher Himalayan leucogranite. They formed as the result of partial melting of Paleoproterozoic to Ordovician high-grade metasedimentary rocks of the Higher Himalayan Sequence about 20 to 24 million years ago during the subduction of the Indian Plate.[47]
Northern panoramic view of Everest from below the Gyatso La on the Friendship Highway between Lhatse and Shelkar
Flora and fauna
See also: Organisms at high altitude
Euophrys omnisuperstes, a minute black jumping spider, has been found at elevations as high as 6,700 metres (22,000 ft), possibly making it the highest confirmed non-microscopic permanent resident on Earth. It lurks in crevices and may feed on frozen insects that have been blown there by the wind. It should be noted that there is a high likelihood of microscopic life at even higher altitudes.[48] Birds, such as the Bar-headed Goose, have been seen flying at the higher altitudes of the mountain, while others, such as the Chough, have been spotted as high as the South Col at 7,920 metres (25,980 ft)[49] scavenging on food, or even corpses, left by prior climbing expeditions. There is a moss that grows at 6,480 metres (21,260 ft) on Mount Everest.[50] It may be the highest altitude plant species.[50]
EnvironmentAtmospheric pressure comparison
Location Pressure
Olympus Mons summit 0.03 kilopascals (0.0044 psi)
Mars average 0.6 kilopascals (0.087 psi)
Hellas Planitia bottom 1.16 kilopascals (0.168 psi)
Armstrong limit 6.25 kilopascals (0.906 psi)
Mount Everest summit[51] 33.7 kilopascals (4.89 psi)
Earth sea level 101.3 kilopascals (14.69 psi)
Dead Sea level[52] 106.7 kilopascals (15.48 psi)
Surface of Venus[53] 9.2 megapascals (1,330 psi)
Besides rubbish, the degradation on Himalayan peaks and other issues concerned long-time Everest guide and climber Apa Sherpa. He said when he first started climbing Everest, the trail to the summit was covered with ice and snow. But it is now dotted with bare rocks. The melting ice has also exposed deep crevasses, making expeditions more dangerous.[54] Apa organized an expedition to remove 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) of rubbish from the lower part of the mountain and another 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) from higher areas.[54]
In 2008, a new weather station at about 8000 m altitude (26,246 feet) went online.[55] The station\'s first data in May 2008 were air temperature −17 °C, relative humidity 41.3%, atmospheric pressure 382.1 hPa (38.21 kPa), wind direction 262.8°, wind speed 12.8 m/s (28.6 mph), global solar radiation 711.9 watts/m2, solar UVA radiation 30.4 W/m2.[55] The project was orchestrated by Stations at High Altitude for Research on the Environment (SHARE), who also placed the Mount Everest webcam in 2011.[55][56] The weather station is located on the South Col and is solar powered.[57]
ClimbingBecause Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world, it has attracted considerable attention and climbing attempts. A set of climbing routes has been established, and the risks in climbing are well known.
Southern and northern climbing routes as seen from the International Space Station. (The names on the photo are links to corresponding pages.)
Routes
Mt. Everest has two main climbing routes, the southeast ridge from Nepal and the north ridge from Tibet, as well as many other less frequently climbed routes.[58] Of the two main routes, the southeast ridge is technically easier and is the more frequently used route. It was the route used by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 and the first recognized of fifteen routes to the top by 1996.[58] This was, however, a route decision dictated more by politics than by design as the Chinese border was closed to the western world in the 1950s after the People\'s Republic of China invaded Tibet.[59]
View from space showing South Col route and North Col/Ridge route
Most attempts are made during May before the summer monsoon season. As the monsoon season approaches, a change in the jet stream at this time pushes it northward, thereby reducing the average wind speeds high on the mountain.[60][61] While attempts are sometimes made after the monsoons in September and October, when the jet stream is again temporarily pushed northward, the additional snow deposited by the monsoons and the less stable weather patterns (tail end of the monsoon) makes climbing extremely difficult.
Southeast ridge
The ascent via the southeast ridge begins with a trek to Base Camp at 5,380 m (17,700 ft) on the south side of Everest in Nepal. Expeditions usually fly into Lukla (2,860 m) from Kathmandu and pass through Namche Bazaar. Climbers then hike to Base Camp, which usually takes six to eight days, allowing for proper altitude acclimatization in order to prevent altitude sickness.[62] Climbing equipment and supplies are carried by yaks, dzopkyos (yak-cow hybrids) and human porters to Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. When Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest in 1953, the British expedition that they were part of (over 400 climbers, porters and sherpas at that point) started from the Kathmandu Valley, as there were no roads further east at that time.
Climbers will spend a couple of weeks in Base Camp, acclimatizing to the altitude. During that time, Sherpas and some expedition climbers will set up ropes and ladders in the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. Seracs, crevasses and shifting blocks of ice make the icefall one of the most dangerous sections of the route. Many climbers and Sherpas have been killed in this section. To reduce the hazard, climbers will usually begin their ascent well before dawn, when the freezing temperatures glue ice blocks in place. Above the icefall is Camp I at 6,065 metres (19,900 ft).
From Camp I, climbers make their way up the Western Cwm to the base of the Lhotse face, where Camp II or Advanced Base Camp (ABC) is established at 6,500 m (21,300 ft). The Western Cwm is a flat, gently rising glacial valley, marked by huge lateral crevasses in the centre, which prevent direct access to the upper reaches of the Cwm. Climbers are forced to cross on the far right near the base of Nuptse to a small passageway known as the \"Nuptse corner\". The Western Cwm is also called the \"Valley of Silence\" as the topography of the area generally cuts off wind from the climbing route. The high altitude and a clear, windless day can make the Western Cwm unbearably hot for climbers.[63]
From ABC, climbers ascend the Lhotse face on fixed ropes up to Camp III, located on a small ledge at 7,470 m (24,500 ft). From there, it is another 500 meters to Camp IV on the South Col at 7,920 m (26,000 ft). From Camp III to Camp IV, climbers are faced with two additional challenges: The Geneva Spur and The Yellow Band. The Geneva Spur is an anvil shaped rib of black rock named by the 1952 Swiss expedition. Fixed ropes assist climbers in scrambling over this snow covered rock band. The Yellow Band is a section of interlayered marble, phyllite, and semischist, which also requires about 100 meters of rope for traversing it.[63]
On the South Col, climbers enter the death zone. Climbers typically only have a maximum of two or three days that they can endure at this altitude for making summit offers. Clear weather and low winds are critical factors in deciding whether to make a summit attempt. If weather does not cooperate within these short few days, climbers are forced to descend, many all the way back down to Base Camp.
verest base camp.jpgA view of Everest southeast ridge base camp. The Khumbu Icefall can be seen in the left. In the center are the remnants of a helicopter that crashed in 2003.
From Camp IV, climbers will begin their summit push around midnight with hopes of reaching the summit (still another 1,000 meters above) within 10 to 12 hours. Climbers will first reach \"The Balcony\" at 8,400 m (27,600 ft), a small platform where they can rest and gaze at peaks to the south and east in the early light of dawn. Continuing up the ridge, climbers are then faced with a series of imposing rock steps which usually forces them to the east into waist-deep snow, a serious avalanche hazard. At 8,750 m (28,700 ft), a small table-sized dome of ice and snow marks the South Summit.[63]
From the South Summit, climbers follow the knife-edge southeast ridge along what is known as the \"Cornice traverse\", where snow clings to intermittent rock. This is the most exposed section of the climb as a misstep to the left would send one 2,400 m (8,000 ft) down the southwest face, while to the immediate right is the 3,050 m (10,000 ft) Kangshung Face. At the end of this traverse is an imposing 12 m (40 ft) rock wall called the \"Hillary Step\" at 8,760 m (28,740 ft).[63]
Hillary and Tenzing were the first climbers to ascend this step and they did it with primitive ice climbing equipment and ropes. Nowadays, climbers will ascend this step using fixed ropes previously set up by Sherpas. Once above the step, it is a comparatively easy climb to the top on moderately angled snow slopes—though the exposure on the ridge is extreme, especially while traversing large cornices of snow. With increasing numbers of people climbing the mountain in recent years, the Step has frequently become a bottleneck, with climbers forced to wait significant amounts of time for their turn on the ropes, leading to problems in getting climbers efficiently up and down the mountain. After the Hillary Step, climbers also must traverse a loose and rocky section that has a large entanglement of fixed ropes that can be troublesome in bad weather. Climbers will typically spend less than half an hour at the summit to allow time to descend to Camp IV before darkness sets in, to avoid serious problems with afternoon weather, or because supplemental oxygen tanks run out.
North ridge
See also: Three Steps
Mount Everest north face from Rongbuk in Tibet
The north ridge route begins from the north side of Everest in Tibet. Expeditions trek to the Rongbuk Glacier, setting up base camp at 5,180 m (16,990 ft) on a gravel plain just below the glacier. To reach Camp II, climbers ascend the medial moraine of the east Rongbuk Glacier up to the base of Changtse at around 6,100 m (20,000 ft). Camp III (ABC—Advanced Base Camp) is situated below the North Col at 6,500 m (21,300 ft). To reach Camp IV on the north col, climbers ascend the glacier to the foot of the col where fixed ropes are used to reach the North Col at 7,010 m (23,000 ft). From the North Col, climbers ascend the rocky north ridge to set up Camp V at around 7,775 m (25,500 ft). The route crosses the North Face in a diagonal climb to the base of the Yellow Band reaching the site of Camp VI at 8,230 m (27,000 ft). From Camp VI, climbers will make their final summit push. Climbers face a treacherous traverse from the base of the First Step: ascending from 8,501 metres (27,890 ft) to 8,534 m (28,000 ft), to the crux of the climb, the Second Step: ascending from 8,577 metres (28,140 ft) to 8,626 m (28,300 ft). (The Second Step includes a climbing aid called the \"Chinese ladder\", a metal ladder placed semi-permanently in 1975 by a party of Chinese climbers. It has been almost continuously in place since, and ladders have been used by virtually all climbers on the route.) Once above the Second Step the inconsequential Third Step is clambered over: ascending from 8,690 m (28,510 ft) to 8,800 m (28,870 ft). Once above these steps, the summit pyramid is climbed by a snow slope of 50 degrees, to the final summit ridge along which the top is reached.[64]
Death zone
Main article: Death zone
The summit of Mount Everest.
At the higher regions of Mount Everest, climbers seeking the summit typically spend substantial time within the death zone (altitudes higher than 8,000 metres (26,000 ft)), and face significant challenges to survival. Temperatures can dip to very low levels, resulting in frostbite of any body part exposed to the air. Since temperatures are so low, snow is well-frozen in certain areas and death or injury by slipping and falling can occur. High winds at these altitudes on Everest are also a potential threat to climbers.
Another significant threat to climbers is low atmospheric pressure. The atmospheric pressure at the top of Everest is about a third of sea level pressure or 0.333 standard atmospheres (337 mbar), resulting in the availability of only about a third as much oxygen to breathe.[65]
Debilitating effects of the death zone are so great that it takes most climbers up to 12 hours to walk the distance of 1.72 kilometres (1.07 mi)) from South Col to the summit.[66] Achieving even this level of performance requires prolonged altitude acclimatization, which takes 40–60 days for a typical expedition. A sea-level dweller exposed to the atmospheric conditions at the altitude above 28,000 feet (8,500 m) without acclimatization would likely lose consciousness within 2 to 3 minutes.[67]
In May 2007, the Caudwell Xtreme Everest undertook a medical study of oxygen levels in human blood at extreme altitude. Over 200 volunteers climbed to Everest Base Camp where various medical tests were performed to examine blood oxygen levels. A small team also performed tests on the way to the summit.[68]
Even at base camp, the low partial pressure of oxygen had direct effect on blood oxygen saturation levels. At sea level, blood oxygen saturation is generally 98–99%. At base camp, blood saturation fell to between 85–87%. blood samples taken at the summit indicated very low oxygen levels in the blood. A side effect of low blood oxygen is a vastly increased breathing rate, often 80–90 breaths per minute as opposed to a more typical 20–30. Exhaustion can occur merely attempting to breathe.[69]
Lack of oxygen, exhaustion, extreme cold, and climbing hazards all contribute to the death toll. An injured person who cannot walk is in serious trouble, since rescue by helicopter is generally impractical and carrying the person off the mountain is very risky. People who die during the climb are typically left behind. About 150 bodies have never been recovered. It is not uncommon to find corpses near the standard climbing routes.[70]
Supplemental oxygen
Everest as seen from Gokyo Ri
Most expeditions use oxygen masks and tanks above 8,000 m (26,000 ft).[71] Everest can be climbed without supplementary oxygen, but only by the most accomplished mountaineers and at increased risk. Humans do not think clearly with low oxygen, and the combination of extreme weather, low temperatures, and steep slopes often require quick, accurate decisions.
The use of bottled oxygen to ascend Mount Everest has been controversial. It was first used on the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition by George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce who climbed up to 7,800 m (25,600 ft) at a spectacular speed of 1000 vertical feet per hour (vf/h). Pinned down by a fierce storm, they escaped death by breathing oxygen from a jury-rigged set-up during the night. The next day they climbed to 8,100 m (26,600 ft) at 900 vf/h—nearly three times as fast as non-oxygen users. Yet the use of oxygen was considered so unsportsmanlike that none of the rest of the Alpine world recognized this high ascent rate.[citation needed] George Mallory himself described the use of such oxygen as unsportsmanlike, but he later concluded that it would be impossible for him to summit without it and consequently used it on his final attempt in 1924.[72] When Tenzing and Hillary made the first successful summit in 1953, they used bottled oxygen, with the expedition\'s physiologist Griffith Pugh referring to the oxygen debate as a \"futile controversy\", noting that oxygen \"greatly increases subjective appreciation of the surroundings, which after all is one of the chief reasons for climbing.\"[73] For the next twenty-five years, bottled oxygen was considered standard for any successful summit.
Reinhold Messner was the first climber to break the bottled oxygen tradition and in 1978, with Peter Habeler, made the first successful climb without it. Although critics alleged that he sucked mini-bottles of oxygen—a claim that Messner denied—Messner silenced them when he summited the mountain solo, without supplemental oxygen or any porters or climbing partners, on the more difficult northwest route, in 1980. Once the climbing community was satisfied that the mountain could be climbed without supplemental oxygen, many purists then took the next logical step of insisting that is how it should be climbed.[74]
The aftermath of the 1996 disaster further intensified the debate. Jon Krakauer\'s Into Thin Air (1997) expressed the author\'s personal criticisms of the use of bottled oxygen. Krakauer wrote that the use of bottled oxygen allowed otherwise unqualified climbers to attempt to summit, leading to dangerous situations and more deaths. The 10–11 May 1996 disaster was partially caused by the sheer number of climbers (34 on that day) attempting to ascend, causing bottlenecks at the Hillary Step and delaying many climbers, most of whom summitted after the usual 2 pm turnaround time. He proposed banning bottled oxygen except for emergency cases, arguing that this would both decrease the growing pollution on Everest—many bottles have accumulated on its slopes—and keep marginally qualified climbers off the mountain.
The 1996 disaster also introduced the issue of the guide\'s role in using bottled oxygen.[75] Guide Anatoli Boukreev\'s decision not to use bottled oxygen was sharply criticized by Jon Krakauer. Boukreev\'s supporters (who include G. Weston DeWalt, who co-wrote The Climb) state that using bottled oxygen gives a false sense of security.[76] Krakauer and his supporters point out that, without bottled oxygen, Boukreev could not directly help his clients descend.[77] They state that Boukreev said that he was going down with client Martin Adams,[77] but just below the South Summit, Boukreev determined that Adams was doing fine on the descent and so descended at a faster pace, leaving Adams behind. Adams states in The Climb: \"For me, it was business as usual, Anatoli\'s going by, and I had no problems with that.\"[78]
Notable climbing records
Main article: Timeline of climbing Mount Everest
By the end of the 2010 climbing season, there had been 5,104 ascents to the summit by about 3,142 individuals.[79] Some notable \"firsts\" by climbers include:
Min Bahadur Sherchan was nearly 77 years old when he reached the top on his first attempt
Apa Sherpa has reached the summit 21 times
1922 – First climb to 8,000 metres (26,247 ft), by George Finch and Captain C. Geoffrey Bruce[80]
1952 – First climb to South Col by 1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition
1953 – First ascent by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary on 1953 British Mount Everest expedition
1975 – First female ascent, by Junko Tabei[79]
1978 – First ascent without supplemental oxygen by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler[81]
1980 – First solo ascent, by Reinhold Messner[81]
1980 – First winter ascent, by Leszek Cichy and Krzysztof Wielicki[82][83]
1988 – First descent by paraglider, by Jean-Marc Boivin[84]
1995 – First female ascent without supplemental oxygen by Alison Hargreaves
1998 – Fastest to reach the summit via the southeast ridge (South Col), without supplemental oxygen, by Kazi Sherpa, in 20 hours and 24 minutes.[85][86][87]
2000 – First descent by ski by Davo Karničar[88]
2001 – First ascent by a blind climber, Erik Weihenmayer[89]
2004 – Fastest to reach the summit via the southeast ridge (South Col), with supplemental oxygen, by Pemba Dorje Sherpa, in 8 hours and 10 minutes.[90]
2007 – Fastest to reach the summit via the northeast ridge, without supplemental oxygen, by Christian Stangl[91][92]
2010 – Youngest to reach the summit, by Jordan Romero (13-year-old)[93]
2011/2013 – Most times to reach the summit, jointly held by Apa Sherpa (21 times; 10 May 1990 – 11 May 2011) and Phurba Tashi (21 times; 1999–2013)[54]
2012 – Oldest female to reach the summit, by Tamae Watanabe (73-year-old)[94]
2013 – Oldest to reach the summit, by Yuichiro Miura, 80 years old[95]
1996 disaster
Main article: 1996 Mount Everest disaster
During the 1996 season, 15 people died while climbing on Mount Everest, the highest number of fatalities in a single year in the mountain\'s history. Eight of them died on 11 May alone. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of climbing Mount Everest.
Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine, was in one of the affected parties, and afterwards published the bestseller Into Thin Air, which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who felt impugned by Krakauer\'s book, co-authored a rebuttal book called The Climb. The dispute sparked a debate within the climbing community. In May 2004, Kent Moore, a physicist, and John L. Semple, a surgeon, both researchers from the University of Toronto, told New Scientist magazine that an analysis of weather conditions on 11 May suggested that freak weather caused oxygen levels to plunge approximately 14%.[96][97]
The storm\'s impact on climbers on the North Ridge of Mount Everest, where several climbers also died, was detailed in a first-hand account by British filmmaker and writer Matt Dickinson in his book The Other Side of Everest. 16-year-old Mark Pfetzer was on the climb and wrote about it in his account, Within Reach: My Everest Story.
2005: Helicopter landing
In May 2005, pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS350 B3 helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest.[98] He needed to land for two minutes to set the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) official record, but he stayed for about four minutes, twice.[98] In this type of landing the rotors stay engaged, which avoids relying on the snow to fully support the aircraft. The flight set rotorcraft world records, for highest of both landing and take-off.[99]
Some press reports suggested that the report of the summit landing was a misunderstanding of a South Col landing, but he had also landed on South Col two days earlier,[100] with this landing and the Everest records confirmed by the FAI.[99] Delsalle also rescued two Japanese climbers at 16,000 ft (4,880 m) while he was there. One climber noted that the new record meant a better chance of rescue.[98]
Everest, Khumbu Glacier, Kumbu Icefall2006: Controversy
Double-amputee climber Mark Inglis revealed in an interview with the press on 23 May 2006, that his climbing party, and many others, had passed a distressed climber, David Sharp, on 15 May, sheltering under a rock overhang 450 metres (1,480 ft) below the summit, without attempting a rescue.[101] The revelation sparked wide debate on climbing ethics, especially as applied to the arduous conditions in the death zone of the highest 850 m of Everest. The climbers who left him said that the rescue efforts would have been useless and only have caused more deaths. Much of this controversy was captured by the Discovery Channel while filming the television program Everest: Beyond the Limit. A crucial decision affecting the fate of Sharp is shown in the program, where an early returning climber (Max Chaya) is descending and radios to his base camp manager (Russell Brice) that he has found a climber in distress. He is unable to identify Sharp, who had chosen to climb solo without any support and so did not identify himself to other climbers. The base camp manager assumes that Sharp is part of a group that has already calculated that they must abandon him, and informs his lone climber that there is no chance of him being able to help Sharp by himself. As Sharp\'s condition deteriorates through the day and other descending climbers pass him, his opportunities for rescue diminish: his legs and feet curl from frostbite, preventing him from walking; the later descending climbers are lower on oxygen and lack the strength to offer aid; time runs out for any Sherpas to return and rescue him. Most importantly, Sharp\'s decision to climb without support left him with no margin for recovery.
As this debate raged, on 26 May, Australian climber Lincoln Hall was found alive, after being declared dead the day before. He was found by a party of four climbers (Dan Mazur, Andrew Brash, Myles Osborne and Jangbu Sherpa) who, giving up their own summit attempt, stayed with Hall and descended with him and a party of 11 Sherpas sent up to carry him down. Hall later fully recovered. Similar actions have been recorded since, including on 21 May 2007, when Canadian climber Meagan McGrath initiated the successful high-altitude rescue of Nepali Usha Bista. Recognizing her heroic rescue, Major Meagan McGrath was selected as a 2011 recipient of the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Canada Humanitarian Award, which recognizes a Canadian who has personally or administratively contributed a significant service or act in the Himalayan Region of Nepal.[102]
Statistics
Ascents of Mount Everest by year through 2010
By the end of the 2010 climbing season, there had been 5,104 ascents to the summit by about 3,142 individuals, with 77% of these ascents being accomplished since 2000.[79] The summit was achieved in 7 of the 22 years from 1953 to 1974, and has not been missed since 1975.[79] In 2007, the record number of 633 ascents was recorded, by 350 climbers and 253 sherpas.[79]
A remarkable illustration of the explosion of popularity of Everest is provided by the numbers of daily ascents. Analysis of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster shows that part of the blame was on the bottleneck caused by the large number of climbers (33 to 36) attempting to summit on the same day; this was considered unusually high at the time. By comparison, on 23 May 2010, the summit of Mount Everest was reached by 169 climbers – more summits in a single day than in the cumulative 31 years from the first successful summit in 1953 through 1983.[79]
There have been 219 fatalities recorded on Mount Everest from the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition through the end of 2010, a rate of 4.3 fatalities for every 100 summits (this is a general rate, and includes fatalities amongst support climbers, those who turned back before the peak, those who died en route to the peak and those who died while descending from the peak). Of the 219 fatalities, 58 (26.5%) were climbers who had summited but did not complete their descent.[79] Though the rate of fatalities has decreased since the year 2000 (1.4 fatalities for every 100 summits, with 3938 summits since 2000), the significant increase in the total number of climbers still means 54 fatalities since 2000: 33 on the northeast ridge, 17 on the southeast ridge, 2 on southwest face, and 2 on north face.[79]
Nearly all attempts at the summit are done using one of the two main routes. The traffic seen by each route varies from year to year. In 2005–07, more than half of all climbers elected to use the more challenging, but cheaper northeast route. In 2008, the northeast route was closed by the Chinese government for the entire climbing season, and the only people able to reach the summit from the north that year were athletes responsible for carrying the Olympic torch for the 2008 Summer Olympics.[103] The route was closed to foreigners once again in 2009 in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama\'s exile.[104] These closures led to declining interest in the north route, and, in 2010, two-thirds of the climbers reached the summit from the south.[79]
Everest economy
An Everest base camp
Climbing Mount Everest can be a relatively expensive undertaking for climbers. Climbing gear required to reach the summit may cost in excess of US$8,000 and most climbers also use bottled oxygen, which adds around $3,000. The permit to enter the Everest area from the south via Nepal costs $10,000 to $25,000 per person, depending on the size of the team. The ascent typically starts in one of the two base camps near the mountain, both of which are approximately 100 kilometres (60 mi) from Kathmandu and 300 kilometres (190 mi) from Lhasa (the two nearest cities with major airports); transferring one\'s equipment from the airport to the base camp may add as much as $2,000.
Beyond this point, costs may vary widely. It is technically possible to reach the summit with minimal additional expenses, and there are \'budget\' travel agencies which offer logistical support for such trips. However, this is considered difficult and dangerous (as illustrated by the case of David Sharp). Many climbers hire \"full service\" guide companies, which provide a wide spectrum of services, including acquisition of permits, transportation to/from base camp, food, tents, fixed ropes,[105] medical assistance while on the mountain, an experienced mountaineer guide, and even personal porters to carry one\'s backpack and cook one\'s meals. The cost of such a guide service may range from $40,000 to $80,000 per person.[106] Since most equipment is moved by sherpas, clients of full-service guide companies can often keep their backpack weights under 10 kilograms (22 lb), or hire a sherpa to carry their backpack for them. By contrast, climbers attempting less commercialized peaks like Mount McKinley are often expected to carry backpacks over 30 kilograms (66 lb) and, occasionally, to tow a sled with 35 kilograms (77 lb) of gear and food.[107]
According to Jon Krakauer, the era of commercialization of Everest started in 1985, when the summit was reached by a guided expedition led by David Breashears that included Richard Bass, a wealthy 55-year old businessman and an amateur mountain climber with only 4 years of climbing experience.[108] By the early 1990s, multiple companies were offering guided tours to the mountain. Rob Hall, the mountaineer who died in the 1996 disaster, had successfully guided 39 clients to the summit prior to that incident.[109]
The degree of commercialization of Mount Everest is a frequent subject of criticism. Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the son of Tenzing Norgay, said in a 2003 interview that his late father would have been shocked to discover that rich thrill-seekers with no climbing experience were now routinely reaching the summit:
You still have to climb this mountain yourself with your feet. But the spirit of adventure is not there any more. It is lost. There are people going up there who have no idea how to put on crampons. They are climbing because they have paid someone $65,000. It is very selfish. It endangers the lives of others.[110]Reinhold Messner concurred in 2004:
You could die in each climb and that meant you were responsible for yourself. We were real mountaineers: careful, aware and even afraid. By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are. You can only get this if you expose yourself to high danger. I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain. ... High-altitude alpinism has become tourism and show. These commercial trips to Everest, they are still dangerous. But the guides and organisers tell clients, \"Don\'t worry, it\'s all organised.\" The route is prepared by hundreds of Sherpas. Extra oxygen is available in all camps, right up to the summit. People will cook for you and lay out your beds. Clients feel safe and don\'t care about the risks.[111]However, not all opinions on the subject among prominent mountaineers are strictly negative. For example, Edmund Hillary, who went on record saying that he has not liked \"the commercialization of mountaineering, particularly of Mt. Everest\"[112] and claimed that \"Having people pay $65,000 and then be led up the mountain by a couple of experienced guides ... isn\'t really mountaineering at all\",[113] nevertheless noted that he was pleased by the changes brought to Everest area by the Westerners:
I don’t have any regrets because I worked very hard indeed to improve the condition for the local people. When we first went in there they didn’t have any schools, they didn’t have any medical facilities, all over the years we have established 27 schools, we have two hospitals and a dozen medical clinics and then we\'ve built bridges over wild mountain rivers and put in fresh water pipelines so in cooperation with the Sherpas we\'ve done a lot to benefit them.[114]Thefts and other crimes
Some climbers have reported life-threatening thefts from supply caches. Vitor Negrete, the first Brazilian to climb Everest without oxygen and part of David Sharp\'s party, died during his descent, and theft from his high-altitude camp may have contributed.[115]
In addition to theft, the 2008 book High Crimes by Michael Kodas describes unethical guides and Sherpas, prostitution and gambling at the Tibet Base Camp, fraud related to the sale of oxygen bottles, and climbers collecting donations under the pretense of removing trash from the mountain.[116][117]
Mythological significanceThe Rongphu Monastery, with Mt. Everest in the background
The southern part of Mt. Everest is regarded as one of several \"hidden valleys\" of refuge designated by Padmasambhava, a ninth-century \"lotus-born\" Buddhist saint.[118]
Near the base of the north side of Mt. Everest lies Rongbuk Monastery, which is the \"sacred threshold to Mount Everest\", with the most dramatic views of the world.[119] For Sherpas living on the slopes of Everest in the Khumbu region of Nepal, Rongbuk Monastery was an important pilgrimage site, accessed in a few days of travel across the Himalaya through Nangpa La.[120]
Miyolangsangma, a Tibetan Buddhist \"Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving\", is believed to have lived at the top of Mt. Everest. According to Sherpa Buddhist monks, Mt. Everest is Miyolangsangma\'s palace and playground, and all climbers are only partially welcome guests, having arrived without invitation.[118]
The Sherpa people also believe that Mt. Everest and its flanks are blessed with spiritual energy, and one should show reverence when passing through this sacred landscape. Here, the karmic effects of one\'s actions are magnified, and impure thoughts are best avoidedMount Everest
Topography
Base Camp Geneva Spur Hornbein Couloir Kangshung Face Kangshung Glacier Khumbu Glacier Khumbu Icefall North Col Norton Couloir Rongbuk Glacier South Col Three Pinnacles Three Steps Western Cwm
Everest kalapatthar crop.jpg
Expeditions
1922 British 1924 British 1933 British 1952 Swiss 1953 British 1974 French 2006 Philippine 2007 Altitude Everest expedition Earth Day 20 International Peace Climb Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition Timeline of climbing Mount Everest
Disasters and deaths
1970 1996 List of people who died climbing Mount Everest
Official bodies
Joint Himalayan Committee Mount Everest Committee
In media
Beyond the Edge The Climb (book) The Climb (film) Everest Everest \'82 Everest: Beyond the Limit EverestMax Expedition Everest Into Thin Air The Man Who Skied Down Everest Mount Everest webcam Paths of Glory Peak The Wildest Dream Wings Over Everest
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Eight-thousanders
Everest K2 Kangchenjunga Lhotse Makalu Cho Oyu Dhaulagiri Manaslu Nanga Parbat Annapurna Gasherbrum I Broad Peak Gasherbrum II Shishapangma
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Seven Summits
Asia
Everest (8,848 m or 29,029 ft)
South America
Aconcagua (6,962 m or 22,841 ft)
North America
Mount McKinley (6,198 m or 20,335 ft)
Africa
Kilimanjaro (5,893 m or 19,334 ft)
Europe
Elbrus (5,642 m or 18,510 ft) or Mont Blanc (4,810 m or 15,781 ft)
Antarctica
Vinson Massif (4,892 m or 16,050 ft)
Australia (continent)
Puncak Jaya (4,884 m or 16,024 ft) or Mount Wilhelm (4,509 m or 14,793 ft)
Australia
Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m or 7,310 ft)Greatest achievements of the 20th century
Posted: Sunday, December 12, 1999
By
A century\'s worth of innovation.1900 -- PsychotherapyWith his book, \"The Interpretation of Dreams,\" Sigmund Freud created the field of psychiatry and laid the foundation for psychoanalysis and modern therapies, such as cognitive analysis and Gestalt therapy.1901 -- Brownie box cameraIn 1901 Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie Box, the first \"point and shoot\" camera. Selling for just $1, the Brownie put photography in the hands of the masses.1901 -- Prenatal careNurses at Boston\'s Lying-In Hospital introduced principles of pre-natal care, examining women during pregnancy for the first time. Today, pre- and post-natal care such as amniocentesis and ultrasound has drastically reduced infant mortality worldwide.1901 -- Wireless radio transmissionOn Dec. 12, 1901, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi sent a wireless radio message across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first person in history to use electromagnetic waves to send information through empty space.1902 -- Motion picturesThe first international box-office smash, Georges Melies\' fantasy, \"A Trip to the Moon,\" had millions flocking to see it. Both in art and entertainment, the cinema has opened a world of realism and escape.1903 -- Sports feverThe first World Series was in 1903, and from neighborhood sandlots to Houston\'s Astrodome, the 20th century has seen an explosion in professional and amateur sports. Today , more people participate in amateur sports than ever before.1903 -- Development of flightOn Dec. 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright kept a rudimentary airplane aloft for 12 seconds. Today, tens of thousands of flights take off every day from airports throughout the world.1904 -- Consumer bankingIn 1904, A. P. Gianni founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco to serve the working class. Gianni pioneered such banking services as home mortgages, auto loans, installment credit and branch offices.1905 -- Einstein and relativityIn 1905, a young Albert Einstein published \"Special Relativity,\" his theory of light and energy, which provided the theoretical basis for all of atomic physics. His theory was proved in 1938 with the discovery of atomic fission.1906 -- Recorded musicWith the production of the Victrola in 1906, technology brought the music-hall sound into the average home. For the first time in history, music was written and performed for no live audience.1906 -- Air conditioningIn 1906, American engineer Willis Carrier patented a device to remove humidity from the air. When combined with refrigeration, it made air conditioning possible.1907 -- Audion vacuum tubePatented in 1907, this was the key element in electronic equipment for radios, televisions, telephones, radar and other communications systems. It remained the basic component in these inventions until replaced by the transistor in 1947.1907 -- PlasticsCreated by Belgian inventor Leo Baekland in 1907 as an electrical insulator, plastic quickly found use in industry, construction and consumer products. Today it is the most widely used material in the United States.1909 -- Poles exploredIn 1909, British Explorer Robert Peary reached the North Pole, after a laborious dogsled trip and three failed attempts. In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole.1909 -- Assembly lineHenry Ford revolutionized the auto industry by standardizing car parts and assigning each worker one task on a moving assembly line. Ford\'s innovation not only made the Model-T affordable, it also became the industry\'s central organizing principal and is still in use today.1910 -- First efficient light bulbThough invented in the 1880s by Thomas Edison, it wasn\'t until 1910 that the first light bulb was developed that was more efficient than gas lighting. By the 1930s, most of America was ablaze with electric light.1913 -- Quantum mechanicsIn 1913, Neils Bohr developed his theory of atomic structure by applying quantum theory to the observations of radiation emitted by atoms. Quantum mechanics gave scientists a working model for the atom and a calculus for predicting atomic movement.1913 -- Modernism1913 marked the debut of modernism with the opening of the New York Armory Show, featuring paintings by Picasso, Du Champ and others. A 20th-century conscious attempt to break with the artistic tradition of the past, modernism has affected architecture, dance, music and the visual arts.1914 -- Panama Canal opensWhen the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it marked the most stunning engineering feat of its day, and was the first man-made project to connect two oceans.1915 -- GandhiIn 1915, Mahatma Gandhi began his decades-long struggle for Indian independence, with his principle of satyagraha, or \"involved, nonviolent noncooperation.\" Years of boycotts, strikes and protests followed, which electrified the country, broke the spell of British rule and offered the world a vision for change using nonviolent means.1915 -- Spread of telephonesIn 1915, there were 11 million telephones nationwide, only 39 years after the invention of a single telephone in Boston. Today, there are 500 million miles of telephone wire. Phones, including the cellular phone, have become a primary means of communications worldwide.1915 -- Tractors and combinesGas-powered tractors plow the earth; gas powered combines harvest it. Henry Ford invented the tractor in 1915, though the combine wasn\'t introduced until the 1940s. The two machines have revolutionized agriculture, making it possible for one man to do the work of 20 in half the time.1920s -- Leisure timeBy the 1920s, middle-class Americans -- especially those living in cities -- had more free time to pursue leisure activities, take vacations and spend money.1920s -- Teen-age cultureAdolescence wasn\'t recognized as a phase of life until the 1920s, as teens began to break away from their parents and model themselves after the \"flappers\" of the era. Testing the limits of culture as they strive for independence, teens have given each generation distinctive styles of clothing, new music and a fresh view of life.1920s -- Fractional horsepowerStarting in the 1920s, the development of fractional horsepower motors made possible a range of labor and timesaving devices, from factory conveyor belts to power tools, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and sewing machines. Without them, refrigerated food and the modern factory would not be possible.1920s -- JazzA musical style born out of the blues in the 1920s, jazz is America\'s greatest musical contribution to the world.1920 -- Liberation of womenIn 1920, the U.S. Congress ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and granted American women the right to vote. The feminist movement of the 1970s continued the transformation with a broadened definition of sex roles, which has given women entry into almost every area of society.1920 -- RadioThe age of commercial radio began when a small Pittsburgh station became the first to broadcast election returns on Nov. 20, 1920. In its heyday, radio was the world\'s number-one source of news and entertainment.1921 -- InsulinIn 1921, Fredrick Ganting discovered a technique for isolating the hormone insulin. This made possible the treatment of diabetes, a major health problem affecting 135 million people worldwide.1924 -- Frozen foodFrozen food was introduced by Clarence Birdseye in 1924, leading to convenience foods and frozen items of every variety. Frozen food has allowed us to enjoy fruits and vegetables off-season, while retaining their nutrient value.1926 -- Liquid fuel rocketsIn 1926 in Auburn, Mass., American scientist Robert Goddard flew the first successful liquid fuel rocket and ushered in the age of space flight. NASA describes the feat as being as important as the first flight of the Wright brothers.1926 -- TelevisionThe first television broadcast on Jan. 27, 1926, went into just three homes. But by the end of the 1950s, 90 percent of U.S. homes had a television. Hailed as the communications medium of the 20th century, television has helped us learn more about each other and created a global culture.1927 -- Lindbergh flies AtlanticIn 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew a monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, nonstop from New York to Paris in 33.5 hours.1928 -- New visions of the universeIn 1928, American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the Red Shift, a theory that states that light from the blue end of the electromagnetic spectrum is from stars moving toward us, and light from the red end of the spectrum is from stars moving away from us. The basis of all modern astronomy, this theory showed that the Milky Way was not the only galaxy, and that the universe is expanding.1928 -- Cancer detection, treatmentDr. George Papanicolau introduced the first cancer test in the 1920s, the Pap smear. To date, it is the single most successful test for cancer and has led to many other cancer-detection tests. This century has also seen the development of new cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and genetic therapy.1928 -- Antibiotics and penicillinScottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928. By 1941, drug companies began mass-producing it, revolutionizing the treatment of previously incurable infections like pneumonia, rheumatic fever and tetanus.1938 -- Synthetic fibersIntroduced in 1938, nylon was widely used in women\'s hosiery and undergarments. Artificial materials like nylon appeared throughout the century. Nylon, polyester and acrylic have made household fashion and household products more convenient, less expensive and easier to care for.1930s -- Government responsibilityStarting with Franklin Roosevelt\'s New Deal program during the Great Depression, governments have been assuming more responsibility for the well-being of their citizens. Roosevelt\'s program replaced direct relief with work relief, employing an annual average of 2.1 million workers between 1935 and 1941.1930s -- Contemporary architectureBuilt in the 1930s, the Empire State Building took 7 million man-hours to build. It was the tallest skyscraper in the world for 40 years, defining the skyline of New York City. Throughout the 20th century, architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, I.M. Pei, Frank Gerry and others merged form, Environment and function to remake the 19th century architecture, and change forever the way the world would use and think about space.1933 -- Spread of electricityWith FDR\'s Tennessee Valley Authority (1933), the Hoover Dam in Arizona (1936), and other large dams and power plants, electricity spread to the masses. Today\'s massive electric power grid, power generators, motors and thousands of other devices have made this the \"electric century.\"1935 -- Paperback booksIn 1935, the mass market of the paperback book made information, literature and entertainment more affordable, portable and accessible to the average person.1935 -- RadarRadar waves were discovered and developed by the British in 1935, initially as a military defense. Soon radar was used in modern navigation and undersea exploration. Microwave ovens would not be possible without radar waves.1935 -- Unions and workers\' rightsAt the start of the century many Americans worked 60-hour weeks, in bad conditions, with no minimum wage. Labor unions changed that with collective bargaining, the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, and the Minimum Wage-Fair Standards Act of 1938.1938 -- Modern philanthropyThe March of Dimes, founded in 1938, encouraged the average person to give time and money to help the less fortunate, sick and needy. Until then, the word philanthropy was strictly associated with the early 20th-century tycoons like Rockefeller and Carnegie who gave millions to educational institutions, medical research and the arts.1938 -- Photocopy machineAmerican Chester Floyd Carlson invented the photocopy machine in 1938. In 1959, Xerox Corp. introduced its first commercial copier, making the dissemination of information less expensive and faster.1939 -- Plasma and blood typingCharles Richard Drew demonstrated that blood plasma had a longer life than whole blood, and therefore could be better used for transfusion. Though first developed in 1902, the ABO system of blood typing is still vital today to match the correct blood groups for transfusion.1940s -- Franchise businessesWhile small franchises operated early in the century, the true era of this business innovation began after World War II, when the affordable purchase of a franchise allowed veterans to go into business for themselves and still retain the expertise and advertising support of their parent company. Among the greatest success stories -- Howard Johnson Lodges, McDonald\'s and A&W.1940 -- Electron microscopeFirst demonstrated by RCA in 1940, electron microscopes have made possible the viewing of the very small, from bacteria to transistors to silicon chips. Production of the modern computer would not be possible without the electron microscope.1942 -- Underwater explorationAlthough there were early pioneers in underwater exploration, it wasn\'t until 1942 when Jacques Cousteau invented the Aqua-Lung (SCUBA) that he and others began actively exploring the mysterious seas. Underwater exploration has opened up a new world of deep-sea life and has led to a greater appreciation of the need to protect and preserve two-thirds of the Earth\'s surface.1946 -- ComputersThe first general-purpose electronic digital computer was completed in 1946. Called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), it could perform 5,000 additions per second. The machine was powered by nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes and measured about 7 feet high by 70 feet long. The most complex and advanced computer of its time, the ENIAC laid the foundation for the information age.1945 -- United Nations is foundedThe U.N. Charter was signed in 1945, and three years later the General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Representing virtually every nation on Earth, the United Nations was the first democratic world body to successfully broker negotiations between warring countries, helping to ensure the most durable general peace on the planet since the Roman Empire.1945 -- Spread of democracyWith the defeat of fascism in World War II and the collapse of the major communist governments throughout most of the world, the 20th century has made possible the spread of democracy and the right of peoples to govern themselves.1945 -- Allies defeat Axis powersThe defeat of the Axis powers in 1945 ended the largest and most costly war -- and deadly genocide -- in history. The defeat of fascism made possible the world as we know it today.1946 -- Dr. SpockWith the publication of his 1946 book, \"Baby and Child Care,\" Dr. Benjamin Spock encouraged parents to follow their instincts in raising their children, replacing the era of distant, inflexible parenting.1947 -- Education for the massesIn 1947, America\'s GI Bill gave a generation the opportunity for higher education. By the 1970s, more than 50 percent of Americans had college degrees. In 1900, few Americans finished even high school, but today nearly 80 percent have their high-school diplomas.1947 -- Breaking the sound barrierAfter the development of the jet engine in 1930, test pilots began approaching the speed of sound, but many thought that breaking the sound barrier could be fatal. In 1947, U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager reached Mach-1 in a Bell X-1 rocket. Today fighter jets, the Concorde, and the space shuttle routinely travel faster than the speed of sound.1947 -- Diary of Anne FrankAnne Frank\'s diary of her time in hiding during the German occupation of Amsterdam was published in 1947. Her diary has sold 20 million copies in more than 50 languages, personalizing the Holocaust for millions of readers around the world.1947 -- LevittownIn 1947, American entrepreneur and builder William Levitt developed Levittown on Long Island. His \"cute\" 750-square-foot, two-bedroom homes sold for $7,990 and were immediately bought by returning GIs who wanted to escape the row houses of urban New York. The utilitarian homes ushered in the age of suburbia and made home ownership possible for the majority of Americans.1947 -- Sports integrationIn 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black to sign a contract with a major-league baseball team, opening the door for minorities in all U.S. national sports.1947 -- TransistorInvented by physicists at the Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1947, the transistor replaced the vacuum tube as the power source of the \"electric century,\" making possible the computer as well as most other modern electronic devices. By the 1980s, a quarter-inch silicon chip composed of many tiny transistors wired together was 10 times more powerful than the 30-ton ENIAC, at 1-30,000th the cost!1948 -- Berlin AirliftWhen Soviet authorities blockaded West Berlin in an effort to force it to join with communist-controlled East Berlin, President Truman ordered an airlift to feed the 2.5 million West Berliners. Despite terrible winter weather, several crashes and the huge logistical challenges, Western pilots led by Gen. Lucius Clay delivered 1.5 million tons of supplies to beleaguered residents, ending the blockade in 1948, after 327 days.1950s -- Rock \'\' rollBlending the American styles of country and western, blues and jazz with a bit of gospel and a pinch of swing, rock and roll was born in the early 1950s. Today it is a multibillion-dollar industry, has its own global video network (MTV) and provides a cultural link for people worldwide.1950s -- Transportation systemsThe Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided a network of 42,400 miles of expressways across the United States, helping to usher in the \"Age of the Automobile\" and how we use and think about our primary means of transportation.1950 -- Credit cardIn 1950, the Diners\' Club issued the first credit card in the United States, and American Express followed in 1958. In the postwar boom, the credit card offered Americans a part of the new prosperity and -- when used wisely -- freed people from the necessity of immediate cash.1951 -- Aspirin tabletThough first marketed in 1899, it wasn\'t until 1951 that the Bayer Co. of Germany was the first to produce aspirin in tablet form. Perhaps the most widely used medication, aspirin is one of the world\'s leading and safest pain-relievers.1952 -- Psychotherapeutic drugsChlorpromazine (trade name: Thorazine) was the first psychotherapeutic drug approved for use in the United States by the FDA in 1954. Its use was stumbled across by Paris surgeon Henri Laborit, who noticed it calmed anxieties in his patients. Since then, for the first time in history, drugs have been developed that can successfully treat mental illness. These include the two most widely prescribed drugs in America, Valium and Prozac.1953 -- DNA and biotechnologyIn 1953, British scientists Watson and Crick isolated the basic helical structure of DNA. Recent breakthroughs in DNA research have opened the door to the design of nature itself, with food crops that don\'t need fertilizer, \"designer bugs\" that devour pests and the creation of organs for human transplants.1953 -- Everest scaledIn 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer, and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world\'s highest peak.1953 -- Sexual revolutionIn 1953, U.S. sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey completed his study on human sexual behavior and published \"Sexual Behavior in the Human Female\" (the study on human males was completed in 1948). The report moved American society away from a traditional Victorian view of sex to a more open and accepting outlook toward human sexuality.1954 -- Polio, small pox vaccinesIn 1954, Jonas Salk developed the original vaccine for polio, leading to the virtual eradication of the disease, and in 1967, the World Health Organization launched a global smallpox vaccination campaign. By 1980, smallpox became the first disease ever to be fully erased. Immunology is directly linked to increased life expectancy in the 20th century.1955 -- Fiber opticsHair-thin glass fibers that transmit light, optical fibers were first developed for medical endoscopy in 1955. Today fiber-optic technology, the key component of the \"information superhighway,\" has virtually replaced all copper wire in long-distance telephone lines, and made possible the Internet.1956 -- Modern hospitalThe first external defibrillation was performed on a human in 1956, marking the age of the modern hospital. Today defibrillators and a whole host of other technologies can be found in modern emergency rooms.1957 -- Modern weather scienceThough a major advance in meteorology was the discovery of the ionosphere, it wasn\'t until 1957, when radar was used to provide hurricane and storm tracking, that modern weather science came into its own. Today, the network of technologies used to predict the weather includes Earth-orbit satellites, Doppler radar and advanced weather-modeling systems on supercomputers.1959 -- Alkaline batteryIntroduced in 1959, the modern alkaline battery furnished a portable energy source for clocks, cameras, electric razors, tape recorders, flashlights, telephones and more -- the first step into the wireless age in which we are increasingly living today.1960s -- Jeans and fashionLevi\'s 501 jeans were invented by Levi Strauss in 1853, but it was not until the 1960s that jeans became a worldwide symbol of informal, democratic dress. As people began to dress the same, class and gender also became less important.1960 -- LasersInvented in 1960 by physicist Gordon Gould, the laser is a high-frequency radio wave that is visible in the optical range. Because the laser is so powerful, the first men on the moon were able to guide a laser beam all the way back to Earth. Currently laser beams are used in medicine, electronics and military weaponry.1960 -- European unificationBeginning with the Treaty of Rome in 1960, the European Economic Commission eventually led to the European Union, and later to the acceptance of the eurodollar, the single currency for 11 European countries, which will be in full use by the year 2002.1960 -- The Green RevolutionBreakthroughs in high-yield agriculture have saved a billion lives since 1960 and literally reversed starvation in Mexico, Pakistan and India. Since high-yield crops produce more on less land, the Green Revolution has also greatly reduced deforestation around the world.1960 -- Birth control pillIn 1960, the birth control pill was approved by the FDA. Over 95 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy, the birth control pill put women in control of their reproductive systems and has been credited for lighting the fire under the \"sexual revolution.\" Approximately 400 million women worldwide have used the birth control pill.1962 -- Communication satellitesThis important technology began in 1962, with Bell Telephone\'s launch of Telstar 1. Today\'s satellites reach across the world, aiding military communication and observation, weather forecasting and all global communication and broadcasting.1962 -- Environmental movementIn 1962, Rachel Carson\'s best-seller \"Silent Spring\" chronicled the destructiveness of DDT and inspired millions worldwide to speak out against man\'s destruction of the planet. Today, activists continue to campaign to save the rain forests, endangered species, natural timberland and more.1964 -- U.S. civil rights movementThough it began in the 1950s with Martin Luther King Jr.\'s landmark, nonviolent campaign against segregation and discrimination, it was the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 -- in which his struggles resulted -- that dramatically changed America.1965 -- Peace movementThe first anti-Vietnam \"teach-in\" was hosted at the University of Michigan\'s Ann Arbor campus in 1965. The late 1960s were marked by the nonviolent protest movement to stop the war in Vietnam. With marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, the anti-war movement was the first successful citizen movement to stop a major war.1967 -- First heart transplantThe first successful heart transplant was performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard of South Africa on Dec. 3, 1967. This groundbreaking surgery opened the door to the possibility of prolonging life through organ transplantation.1969 -- Gay liberationBeginning with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the gay liberation movement came into its own in the 1980s by waging a successful education campaign against AIDS. Gays made social as well as political strides with the election of San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and U.S. Representative Barney Frank.1969 -- Exploration of spaceThe greatest achievement in the human exploration of space was the first moon landing in July 1969. The United States would return to the moon four more times, the last in 1972. Since then we have explored the solar system with probes such as Pioneer and Voyager and successfully landed robots on Mars, the latest being 1997\'s Mars Pathfinder Mission.1970s -- Sewage treatmentThe U.S. Clean Water Act of the 1970s mandated sewage treatment facilities throughout the country. Although sewers were invented in the 19th century, sewage treatment, or methods for treating wastewater before returning it to lakes and oceans, was uncommon until after World War II.1972 -- Investigative journalismWhen Woodward and Bernstein launched their investigation of Watergate in 1972, they were part of a new breed of investigative journalist dedicated to protecting the public interest. Earlier in the century, Upton Sinclair\'s novel \"The Jungle\" exposed the horrors of Chicago\'s meatpacking industry and led to the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Meat Inspection Act and the formation of the FDA.1978 -- Camp David AccordThe leaders of Egypt and Israel began the Middle East Peace Accords in 1978 and took the first step toward ending the conflict in the Middle East.1978 -- Fitness movementIn 1978, James Fixx popularized jogging for cardiovascular fitness with his book, \"The Complete Book of Running.\" In the 1980s, people started joining health clubs, and today there are over 13,000 commercial health clubs in the United States alone.1983 -- HIV identifiedIn 1983, the HIV virus was identified at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, opening the door to possible treatments and a deeper understanding of the human immune system. By 1990, drug protocols were developed, keeping HIV-positive individuals alive longer.1989 -- Tianamen SquareOn June 4, 1989, Chinese troops and tanks entered Beijing\'s Tianamen Square to quell a two-month-long student protest for political reform. Hundreds of students were hurt or killed, yet one lone young man stood his ground, facing off a massive tank. Refusing to move, this unknown rebel stood against the Chinese army for all to see.1989 -- Fall of the Berlin WallOn Nov. 9, 1989, East and West Germans alike converged on the wall that had separated their city for 28 years and began to tear it down. This extraordinary act, which galvanized television viewers around the world, symbolized the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War.1990s -- Global literatureThe 20th century has produced a wealth of important books. Today, novels like \"Beloved\" by black U.S. author Toni Morrison and \"100 Years of Solitude\" by Latin-American author Gabriel Garcia Marquez mark a new, inclusive era in literature, giving voice to cultures and concerns from around the world.1990 -- Disabled rights movementWith the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, significant strides for the disabled have been made, especially in architecture and communications.1991 -- InternetThe Internet, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, really came into its own in the 1990s with the advent of the World Wide Web. Invented by software engineer Tim Berners-Lee, the Web was put on the Internet in the summer of 1991. In less than a decade after its inception, over 60 million people use the World Wide Web, including you!1994 -- Mandela elected presidentTextf=Helv Con s=8.8 w=9.2 l=9.5q=lNelson Mandela, released from prison on Feb. 11, 1990, after serving 27 years for treason, was sworn in as president of the new South Africa on May 10, 1994 -- an event witnessed by the U.N. secretary-general and delegations from around the world. Mandela\'s presidency also marked the end of South African apartheid.1997 -- First mammal clonedIn February 1997, a Finn-Dorset lamb named Dolly became the first mammal produced by cloning, after 277 failed cloning attempts. The work of embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues has led to further cloning experiments and breakthroughs in the development of pharmaceuticals.1997 -- End of European colonialismAt the start of the 20th century, the English colonial empire included a quarter of the planet\'s population. Hong Kong, the last significant holding of the British Empire, was returned to China in 1997, marking the official end of European colonialism. By 1973, the British and French colonial eras were mostly at an end, as much of Asia, Africa and India had gained independence.1999 -- Increased life expectancyToday, the life expectancy in the United States is 76 years for men and 85 years for women. In 1900, life expectancy was 40 years. By 2000, 13 percent of the U.S. population will be over 65. Reasons for increased life expectancy includes the world\'s doubled food supply, better control of diseases and increased national wealth.
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List of community radio stations List of local commercial radio stations List of semi-national analogue and digital stations
Other stations
List of hospital radio stations Pirate radio Restricted Service Licence List of RSL stations List of satellite radio stations List of student and schools radio
Other
Broadcasting companies Broadcasting House FM broadcasting MediaCityUK People Programmes Radio Academy Radio Independents Group RAJAR Sony Radio Academy Awards Most-listened-to programs
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Television
Principal channels
BBC
BBC One BBC Two BBC Three BBC Four BBC News BBC Parliament CBBC CBeebies HD BBC HD
BSkyB
Challenge Pick TV Sky1 Sky2 Sky 3D Sky Arts Sky Atlantic Sky Betting and Gaming Sky Living Sky Livingit Sky Movies Sky Movies Box Office Sky News Sky Sports Sky Sports F1 Sky Sports News
Channel Four
Channel 4 E4 Film4 More4 4seven
Channel 5
Channel 5 5* 5USA
ITV
ITV ITV2 ITV3 ITV4 CITV HD ITV HD
UKTV
Alibi Blighty Dave Eden Gold Good Food Home Really Watch Yesterday
Services and
platforms
4oD Film4oD Analogue Analogue terrestrial (defunct) BBC iPlayer blinkbox BT Vision Cable Demand 5 Digital Digital terrestrial List of channels Freesat Freesat+ Freeview Freeview+ Freewire High-definition List of channels ITV ITV Player Local television Real Digital Restricted Service Licence Satellite List of channels Sky Freesat from Sky On Demand Sky+ Sky+ HD Smallworld Cable TalkTalk TV Top Up TV TVCatchup Virgin Media FilmFlex TiVo V+ YouView Zattoo
Studios
BBC Elstree Studios BBC Pacific Quay BBC Television Centre Broadcasting House Broadcasting House (Cardiff) The Fountain Studios The Leeds Studios The London Studios MediaCityUK Gas Street Studios Granada Studios Roath Lock Teddington Studios
Other
Awards Defunct channels Edinburgh International Television Festival History List of years List of channels Production companies Programmes Student television Viewing statistics Most-watched broadcasts
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Companies and organisations
Companies
Major companies
Aegis Group Archant BBC Bloomsbury Publishing British Sky Broadcasting BT Group Channel Four Chrysalis Group Daily Mail and General Trust Economist Group EMAP EMI Group Endemol UK Global Radio Guardian Media Group Haymarket Informa IPC Media ITN ITV Johnston Press Mecom Group News International Newsquest Northern & Shell Pearson Press Holdings Reed Elsevier Reuters STV Group Syco TalkTalk Group Trinity Mirror UBM UTV Media Virgin Media
Other resources
Broadcasting companies Defunct media companies Publishing companies List of largest UK book publishers Record labels
Government and
regulatory bodies
Advertising Standards Authority BBC Trust British Board of Film Classification British Film Institute Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ofcom Press Complaints Commission S4C Authority UK Film Council
Industry and
trades bodies
British Academy of Film and Television Arts British Phonographic Industry Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union Clearcast Digital TV Group Digital UK Equity Federation Against Copyright Theft National Union of Journalists The Publishers Association Royal Television Society United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting
Other
BBC Academy National Film and Television School National Media Museum
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Regional and student media
Regional media
Media in England Media in Birmingham Media in London Media in Manchester Media in Northern Ireland Media in Scotland Media in Aberdeen Media in Dundee Media in Glasgow Media in Wales Media in Cardiff
Student media
Student television
Category Commons
[hide] v t e
United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011
Referendum question
\"At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the “alternative vote” system be used instead?\" (compare)
Acts
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011
Parties
Advocating a \"Yes\" vote
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland Christian Party Christian Peoples Alliance English Democrats Green Party of England and Wales Liberal Democrats Liberal Party Mebyon Kernow Pirate Party UK Plaid Cymru Scottish Green Party Scottish National Party SDLP Sinn Féin UKIP Libertarian Party
Neutral/split
Labour Party Socialist Party of Great Britain
Advocating a \"No\" vote
British National Party Communist Party of Britain Conservative Party Democratic Unionist Party England First Party Green Party in Northern Ireland Respect Party Socialist Party Traditional Unionist Voice Ulster Unionist Party
Advocacy groups
Advocating a \"Yes\" vote
YES! To Fairer Votes
Advocating a \"No\" vote
NOtoAV
Print media
Advocating a \"Yes\" vote
The Guardian The Independent The Financial Times Daily Mirror
Advocating a \"No\" vote
The Sun Daily Mail The Times Daily Express Daily Telegraph The Economist Evening Standard
Result
Results of the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011

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