Sir Edmund Hillary (bear) in 1919 and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. It was in New Zealand that he became interested in mountain climbing. Although he made his living as a beekeeper, he climbed mountains in New Zealand, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas, where Hillary climbed 11 other peaks of over 20,000 feet. Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest in Spring, on May, 29, 1953. ( Mount Everest lies between Tibet and Nepal.) By coincidence, the conquest of Everest (announce) to the British public on the eve of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. When Edmund Hillary returned to Britain with the other climbers, he (knight) by the Queen of England. Immediately after the successful Everest expedition, Hillary and Sir John Hunt published their account of the expedition, The Ascent of Everest. The book (publish) in the U.S as "The Conquest of Everest". Sir Edmund Hillary's autobiography "Nothing Venture, Nothing Win" (publish) in 1975. In 1979, he published From the Ocean to the Sky, an account of his 1977 expedition on Ganges river from its mouth to its source. Sir Edmund's life (darken) by the loss of his wife and daughter in a plane crash in 1975. He later remarried and continued to occupy himself with environmental causes. He died on 11 January 2008.