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New Zealand mountaineer. In 1953, with Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, he reached the summit of Mount Everest, the first to climb the world’s highest peak.
As a member of the Commonwealth Transantarctic Expedition in 1957 and 1958, he was the first person since R F Scott to reach the South Pole overland, on 3 January 1958.