home learning challenge 1 excellence

For this home learning challenge i am doing E9 and that is: research a person/event from New Zealands history and present your findings. i research sir Edmond Hillary and here is my findings.

Sir Edmund Hillary

20 July 1919 - 11 January 2008

This very brave man did some amazing things. With Tenzing Norgay he became the first ever person to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world in 1953. He served in World War II and raised a lot of money to build schools and hospitals for the people of Nepal where Mount Everest is.

Lets go further back to when he was at school. He started off school at Tuakau Primary School then went to high school at Auckland Grammar School. It took him two hours to get to school each day on the train and after school another two hours to get home again. At Tuakau Primary School he finished two years early and then went to high school. He only got average marks.

A few years went by and he went and studied science and mathematics at Auckland University College. After that he went on to be a bee keeper. He only worked in the summer meaning he climbed mountains in the winter.

One thing your won't know about him is that his father fought in Gallipoli and as I mentioned before is that he fought in World War II as a navigator in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He got badly burned in a boat accident.

He also reached both the South and North poles and was the first person to reach both poles and climb Mount Everest.

He was married twice and had three children. His first wife and one of his daughters died in a plane crash in 1975.

He was knighted in 1995 and his picture is on our $5 note.

He died of a heart attack.