60 free Edmund Hillary trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Edmund Hillary was a New Zealand beekeeper who, on 29 May 1953, became one of the first two people to stand on top of Everest, and then spent the next half-century doing things nobody expected of him: driving farm tractors to the South Pole, flying to the North Pole with Neil Armstrong, jetboating up the Ganges, hunting the Yeti and building schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people who had carried his expeditions. This quiz covers the whole story: his early climbs and wartime service, the 1951 reconnaissance and the 1952 Cho Oyu attempt, every detail of the 1953 expedition from frozen boots to the coded message that reached London on coronation morning, the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the Silver Hut, family tragedy, the Himalayan Trust, the $5 note and the mountain range on Pluto. It suits climbers, New Zealanders and anyone who has read about the first ascent. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Hillary, the 1953 expedition, Tenzing Norgay, the Trans-Antarctic Expedition and the Himalayan Trust, and each question shows its supporting sentence after you answer.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date did Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Everest?
29 May 1953
The news reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and the press hailed it as a coronation gift.
Q 02What was Hillary's trade before he became famous, working with his father and brother?
Beekeeper
The family ran 1,600 hives; he kept bees in summer, climbed in winter, and took 12 to 100 stings a day.
Q 03A 1935 school trip to which NZ volcano sparked Hillary's interest in climbing at 16?
Mount Ruapehu
He later said the trip made him want to 'see the world', and he took up tramping instead of studying.
Q 04Hillary's first major climb, in 1939, took him to the summit of which peak in the Southern Alps?
Mount Ollivier
It stands near Aoraki / Mount Cook, and the trip brought him the first real friends he said he had ever had.
Q 05What role did Hillary serve in with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II?
Navigator
He flew in Catalina flying boats and was badly burnt in an accident in the Solomon Islands in 1945.
Q 06Which self-improvement movement did Hillary spend five years with in the late 1930s?
Radiant Living
His test lecture was on 'Inferiority: cause and cure', and he credited the movement with teaching him to speak confidently in public.
Q 07Who led the 1951 British reconnaissance expedition to Everest that Hillary joined?
Eric Shipton
With him Hillary climbed high on Pumori for the first clear view of the whole Western Cwm.
Q 08Which 8,000-metre peak did Hillary attempt unsuccessfully in 1952, the year before Everest?
Cho Oyu
When the attempt was abandoned, he and George Lowe crossed illegally into Tibet to look at Everest's north side and the pre-war camps.
Q 09Who led the 1953 expedition on which Hillary reached the summit?
John Hunt
An army colonel, he replaced the expected leader at the last minute; Hillary objected at first, then was won over by his energy.
Q 10Which pair made the first summit attempt on 26 May 1953, turning back just below the top?
Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans
They reached the South Summit but one man's oxygen set failed within 300 vertical feet of the top.
Q 11What did Hillary discover on the morning of the summit climb, costing him two hours over a stove?
His boots had frozen solid
The pair then set off with 30-pound packs from a tent pitched at 27,900 feet.
Q 12The final obstacle below the summit, a 40-foot rock face, is now known as what?
The Hillary Step
He wriggled up a crack between the rock and the snow, then chopped steps over 'bump after bump' to the top.
Q 13When did the pair reach the summit?
11:30 am
They had left their high camp at 6.30 am and reached the South Summit at 9.
Q 21What was cameraman Tom Stobart's Oscar-nominated film about the climb called?
The Conquest of Everest
The mountaineers took roughly 400 people up the approach, including 362 porters and 10,000 pounds of baggage.
Q 22Hillary reached the South Pole overland in January 1958 as part of which venture?
The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
He led its New Zealand section, and his party was the first ever to reach the Pole in motor vehicles.
Q 23What vehicles did Hillary's party drive to the South Pole?
Ferguson farm tractors
Q 14Roughly how long did Hillary and Tenzing spend on the summit?
About 15 minutes
Hillary photographed Tenzing with his ice-axe raised, but there is no summit photo of Hillary, who declined to pose.
Q 15What did Hillary leave on the summit of Everest?
A small cross
Tenzing buried chocolates in the snow as an offering to the mountain's gods.
Q 16Descending from the summit, Hillary greeted the first teammate he met with which famous line?
'Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.'
The teammate was his old friend George Lowe, who had prepared the Lhotse Face for the expedition.
Q 17What finally settled the argument over which of the two men set foot on the summit ahead of the other?
Tenzing's 1955 autobiography: Hillary led
A banner in Kathmandu had shown Tenzing dragging a 'semi-conscious' Hillary to the top; both men always called it a team effort.
Q 18Jan Morris sent news of the Everest summit in code. Which phrase meant 'summit reached'?
'Snow conditions bad'
The full message ran 'Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement': the last two phrases identified Hillary and Tenzing.
Q 19What honour did Hillary learn he had received when he got back to Kathmandu?
A KBE knighthood
The expedition leader was made a Knight Bachelor, while Tenzing, ineligible for a knighthood, received the George Medal.
Q 20Why could Tenzing Norgay not be knighted for the ascent?
He was not a British subject
Instead he received the George Medal, and King Tribhuvan gave him the Star of Nepal.
He was only supposed to lay supply depots for the British party, but pressed on to beat them to the Pole.
Q 24Who led the British half of the trans-Antarctic crossing that Hillary supported, then beat to the Pole?
Vivian Fuchs
He completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 99 days and was knighted for it.
Q 25Hillary's party was only the third to reach the South Pole overland. Who were the first two?
Amundsen and Scott
Those parties arrived in 1911 and 1912; the third came 46 years later, and by tractor.
Q 26Which station did Hillary's team set up on the Ross Sea side of Antarctica in 1957?
Scott Base
New Zealand still runs it, and its flags flew at half-mast when he died in 2008.
Q 27Which world-famous astronaut flew with Hillary to the North Pole in 1985?
Neil Armstrong
That landing made Hillary the first person to have stood at both poles and on the summit of Everest.
Q 28Hillary's 1977 'Ocean to Sky' expedition travelled by jetboat up which river?
The Ganges
The team ran from the river's mouth to its source in the Himalayas.
Q 29What did Hillary's 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition seek besides physiological data?
The abominable snowman
Physiologist Griffith Pugh also showed on that trip that Everest could be climbed without oxygen after long acclimatisation.
Q 30When Hillary brought back three 'Yeti scalps' for testing, what were they?
Two from bears and one from a goat antelope
He concluded that the yeti was 'not a strange, superhuman creature' and that most sightings had rational explanations.