First Summit. In 1953, a ninth British expedition, went to Nepal consisting of two climbing pairs attempting to reach the summit using the South Col Route. The first pair came within 100m of the summit on 26 May, but turned back due to exhaustion. After 2 days of poor weather, the expedition made its second attempt to reach the summit with the second climbing pair.  Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Sherpa Tenzig Norgay reached the summit at 11:30 a.m. local time on 29 May 1953.

Notable “first” summits. On 8 June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, both of the United Kingdom, made an attempt on the summit via the north col/north ridge route from which they never returned. While on a lecture tour beforehand, in the United States, a reporter asks Mallory why he wants to climb Everest, and Mallory immortally replied "Because it's there" Controversy exists in the mountaineering community as to whether this reached the summit on their attempt. The general consensus among climbers has been that they did not as reviews of their travel diary does not show any evidence of reaching the summit. In 1999, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body.

First without Oxygen. On 20 August 1980, Reinhold Messner (Italy) became the first person to complete a solo summit of Everest, without supplementary oxygen or support. He climbed for three days alone from his base camp at 6500 meters. His route via North Col, was noted as the 8th climbing route to the summit.

First Woman. On 16 May 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan, became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest.  She used the South-East Ridge route. Junko was also the first woman to climb the seven summits which she completed in 1992.

First Australian. On 3 October 1984, Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer became the first Australians to climb Mt Everest. This ascent was done without oxygen and set a new route up the North Face.

Rescue of an Australian. Lincoln Hall was thought to have died on 25 May 2006, while descending from the summit of Mount Everest, after suffering from a form of altitude sickness. According to reports, Sherpas attempted a rescue for hours, but as night began to fall, their oxygen supplies diminished and snow blindness set in, they were ordered by their expedition leader to leave an apparently dead Hall on the mountain and return to camp. A statement was later released announcing his death. However, the next morning at 7am (12 hours later) Hall was found still alive at 8700m by a team of Americans and Canadians making a summit attempt. One team member described the scene just below the Second Step:

"Sitting to our left, about two feet from a 10,000 foot drop, was a man. Not dead, not sleeping, but sitting cross legged, in the process of changing his shirt. He had his down suit unzipped to the waist, his arms out of the sleeves, was wearing no hat, no gloves, no sunglasses, had no oxygen mask, regulator, ice axe, oxygen, no sleeping bag, no mattress, no food nor water bottle. 'I imagine you're surprised to see me here,' he said. Now, this was a moment of total disbelief to us all. Here was a gentleman, apparently lucid, who had spent the night without oxygen at 8600m, without proper equipment and barely clothed. And ALIVE."

A rescue effort that mountain observers described as 'unprecedented in scale' then swung into action. The team abandoned their summit attempt to stay with Hall who was badly frostbitten and delusional from the effects of severe cerebral oedema, while a rescue team of 12 Sherpas, climbed up from below.