Edmund Hillary, in full Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, (born July 20, 1919, Auckland, New Zealand—died January 11, 2008, Auckland), New Zealand mountain climber and Antarctic explorer who, with the Tibetan mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,035 feet [8,850 metres]; see Researcher’s Note: Height of Mount Everest), the highest mountain in the world.