Great Explorers
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After two years of training with the British Mount Everest Expedition, Edmund Hillary, along with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, completed the challenging climb to become the first men to reach the summit of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest, on May 29, 1953. But this historic achievement didn't mean the end of Hillary's adventures. In 1955, he led a party across Antarctica by snow tractor, pioneering a new route to the South Pole. Hillary followed this up by leading several expeditions to the Himalayas, and establishing the Himalayan Trust, which has funded more than 30 schools in Nepal, as well as hospitals, medical clinics, and airstrips. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, Hillary was also granted honorary citizenship in Nepal. In ""Sir Edmund Hillary"", learn about this daring explorer and his accomplishments.
Personally selected by President Thomas Jefferson, Captain Meriwether Lewis was assigned to lead an expedition to the West, where the United States had just completed the Louisiana Purchase land transaction with France. Lewis selected William Clark to accompany him, and as leaders of the Corps of Discovery, the men became the first to find an overland route to the Pacific Ocean, the first to travel on the Missouri River in the future state of Montana, the first to cross the Continental Divide south of Canada, and the first white men to make direct contact with the Shoshone, the Flathead, and the Nez Perce Indians. Perhaps most importantly, Lewis and Clark discovered and described 122 species of Western birds and animals and 178 plants. Their 200,000-word journals continue to be a source of fascination to Americans. In ""Lewis and Clark"", read how these two adventurers are still celebrated as among the greatest of American explorers.
La Salle is one of the best-known but least-understood explorers of human history. Celebrated for following the Mississippi to its mouth in present-day Louisiana, he was also berated for failing to relocate that same area when he came by sea. Justly known as the greatest of the canoe-carrying and paddle-wielding Frenchmen of his time, he was a failure when it came to colonization and conquest. There was greatness within him, including a powerful will to succeed, but there was also sheer stubbornness, which cost him when he attempted to create a French colony in what is now Texas. In ""Robert de La Salle"", read about a man whose journeys encouraged explorers from other European nations to survey the southeastern United States.