Simon Svoboda, age 13, of Bowling Green, Ohio, for his question:

WHO WAS THE FIRST ON TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST?

Two men were the first to reach the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. It happened on May 29, 1953, when a mountain climber from New Zealand named Edmund Hillary and a Sherpa tribesman from Nepal named Tenzing Norgay made it to the top.

Later in the year Queen Elizabeth II knighted Hillary for reaching Mount Everest's 29,028 foot summit.

Hillary had climbed part way up Mount Everest in expeditions in 1951 and 1952.

In 1957 and 1958 Hillary traveled from McMurdo Sound to the South Pole as part of a transarctic expedition led by Sir Vivian Fuchs.

In 1960 Hillary headed an expedition which conquered 27,824 foot Mount Makalu I. On this journey he tested man's ability to get by without oxygen at high locations and also looked for but did not find the abominable snowman.