Mt. Everest was named after the chief of the survey department of the Himalayas. In 1852, his successor found that this mountain was the highest in the world. It is called Chomolungma in Chinese, Sagarmatha in Nepalese.
The race to climb the highest mountain in the world began in the late 1800s. In 1921, a British party tried many times from the North ridge (the Tibet Side) but failed. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and a sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, became the first mountaineers to reach the summit, climbing by the south ridge (the Nepal side).