On January 11, 2008 (December 4, 2007 in the lunar calendar), Sir Edmund Hillary, who first climbed Mount Everest, died at the age of 88. New Zealanders Edmund Hillary (left) and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first to reach the summit. On May 23, 80-year-old Japanese mountaineering veteran Yuichiro Miura successfully climbed Mount Everest. On January 11, 2008, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced that Sir Edmund Hillary, who first climbed Mount Everest, died at the age of 88 in a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. On May 23, 80-year-old Japanese mountaineering veteran Yuichiro Miura successfully climbed Mount Everest. Edmond Hillary was born on July 20, 1919 and started climbing in high school. After finishing school, Hillary used to keep bees in her hometown of Auckland. During World War II, Hillary joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force and became obsessed with mountaineering after the war. In 1951, Hillary joined a British mountaineering team and began an expedition to Mount Everest. At 11:30 am on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and his guide Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa, worked together to overcome all odds and dangers to reach the 29,035-foot peak from the southern slope of Mount Everest and return safely, completing the human dream of reaching the top of the earth. After Hillary returned to Scotland, the Queen soon canonized Sir Edmund Hillary. Since then, he has returned to Nepal more than 100 times and established the Himalayan Foundation. He established 27 schools, 2 hospitals and 12 clinics near the Himalayas, and also built an airport runway to promote the development of tourism. Thousands of Sherpas have benefited. He later visited the Antarctic and the headwaters of the Yangtze River, and devoted his later years to humanitarian causes. This is a file photo of Hillary (right) and Tenzin interviewed by reporters at the foot of Mount Everest on June 6, 1953.