Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry, I'm Tracy B. Wilson. And uh, it
Speaker 1: was not all that long ago that mankind was not
Speaker 1: entirely certain of how high it could go without a vehicle. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is actually much more recent history than people
Speaker 1: may realize. It certainly is more recent than I realized.
Speaker 1: If you had asked me prior to researching this topic,
Speaker 1: I would have guessed that the Summit of Everest had
Speaker 1: actually been reached in the late nineteenth century. It does
Speaker 1: seem kind of like a late nineteenth century story. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's where the seeds are sown. Yeah, sure, but no.
Speaker 1: So today we're actually talking about however, became this ultimate
Speaker 1: climbing challenge and how it was first conquered by a
Speaker 1: beekeeper and a Nepalese guide. So we're first going to
Speaker 1: start off by covering the geography pretty quickly. And I
Speaker 1: should also say this is going to be a two
Speaker 1: parter because they were took a lot of time and effort. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is an example often when we have two parters,
Speaker 1: it's something that we didn't intend to have a two
Speaker 1: part episode when we started, but the farther we got
Speaker 1: into it, the more we realized we needed more time
Speaker 1: than we had. Yeah, there's just and even so I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, a lot is edited out of this,
Speaker 1: Like certainly you could expand probably any one of the
Speaker 1: expeditions and make it its own episode, because there are
Speaker 1: these really detailed and intense write ups of each expedition
Speaker 1: and all of the various things that happened. But this
Speaker 1: time we're going to mostly be covering the time from
Speaker 1: when it was recognized by the British, because certainly people
Speaker 1: that lived near it had known about it much longer
Speaker 1: than that, and how it became an important goal for
Speaker 1: many people, and then we'll kind of get to early efforts,
Speaker 1: and then the second episode we'll do post World War
Speaker 1: two through to the Magic Moment and even a little
Speaker 1: bit after that. So heads up, that's where we're going.
Speaker 1: So first, we're going to cover a little bit of
Speaker 1: the geography of the area. Mount Everest is part of
Speaker 1: the Himalayan Range, which separates the Tibetan Plateau from the
Speaker 1: Indian plains to the south, and the Himalayan Wall is
Speaker 1: approximately two thousand miles or kilometers long and about three
Speaker 1: hundred miles or four hundred eighty kilometers wide, so in
Speaker 1: terms of like one side of the range to the
Speaker 1: other side of the range, rather than the length that
Speaker 1: it runs. Everest sits right on the border between Tibet
Speaker 1: and Nepal, just east of Katmandu, and the Mountain range
Speaker 1: was formed by the shifting of the Indian tectonic plate
Speaker 1: pushing against the Asian plate, and that process, by the way,
Speaker 1: is ongoing, so the Himalayans get a little bit taller
Speaker 1: every year. Still, the summit of Everest is recognized as
Speaker 1: the highest point on Earth. It's just a little bit
Speaker 1: higher than twenty nine thousand feet or eight thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred meters, and it's going up incrementally each year, tiny bits, yes,
Speaker 1: no ters at a time. The climate is anything but hospitable.
Speaker 1: Temperatures can drop to negative eighty degrees fahrenheit, which is
Speaker 1: minus sixty two celsius at the summit. The air has
Speaker 1: less than a third the amount of oxygen that it
Speaker 1: contains at sea level, and because of the extremes of
Speaker 1: the climate, it can take more than a month to
Speaker 1: climb mountain, and a lot of that is so the
Speaker 1: body has time to adjust to this altitude. High altitude
Speaker 1: cerebral edema, which is fluid accumulating in the brain, is
Speaker 1: a serious risk and it can not only make climbers
Speaker 1: feel weak and lethargic, it can also cause confusion and
Speaker 1: lack of coordination, and climbers have been known to start
Speaker 1: talking gibberish and exhibit really poor judgment. And I actually
Speaker 1: have a personal anecdotal thing about altitude sickness that I
Speaker 1: discovered after I was reading on the notes for this
Speaker 1: which is my dad's career military, his career Air Force,
Speaker 1: And when I was telling him about this podcast and
Speaker 1: that I was working on it, he started telling you
Speaker 1: about this crazy altitude sickness test that they would do
Speaker 1: when he was in the Air Force, where they would
Speaker 1: take everybody up really really high on a plane and
Speaker 1: you kind of had a buddy with you, and half
Speaker 1: of the guys had to take off their oxygen masks
Speaker 1: and then they were given a quick, simple four question
Speaker 1: tests and they had to answer it as quickly as
Speaker 1: they could, and if they started getting wonky, it was
Speaker 1: their buddies job to put the oxygen back on them
Speaker 1: because they were getting altitude sickness, and he was describing
Speaker 1: to me what it was like to kind of have
Speaker 1: that inkling of I know something's not right here. He said,
Speaker 1: You know, you'd write the first two questions fine, and
Speaker 1: then the third one your pen would trail off the page,
Speaker 1: but you'd think you were still doing it, except you
Speaker 1: would get a flash of I'm not doing it. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm doing it. Uh. And it was just sort of
Speaker 1: a fascinating insight into how like your brain is tricking
Speaker 1: you as you go to think you're okay, you're okay.
Speaker 1: No you're not okay. No, I'm okay, No you're not.
Speaker 1: I can imagine how frightening that is when you are
Speaker 1: feet near well. And I think altitude sickness kind of
Speaker 1: gets a lot of the press as far as the
Speaker 1: health effects of trying to climb this mountain. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are so many others, like, oh, yeah, the air is
Speaker 1: so dry that people will cough until they break their
Speaker 1: own ribs from coughing. Yeah. I was watching a documentary
Speaker 1: while work in this and one guy was talking about
Speaker 1: how his the air was so dry and cold that
Speaker 1: even in his boots, the skin on his toes started
Speaker 1: to crack open and expose the bone underneath. There were
Speaker 1: other very gross things won't go into. You can go
Speaker 1: to the Mommification podcast for gross. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the body is just really put through its paces when
Speaker 1: you're getting up at these altitudes. Um Just reaching base
Speaker 1: camp on the Nepalese side of the mountain can take
Speaker 1: about ten days and then normally climbers will make a
Speaker 1: series of stepped climbs, like they'll go up a bit
Speaker 1: and then they retreated a little bit, and uh, that
Speaker 1: will repeat kind of as part of this altitude um
Speaker 1: acclamation and they keep doing that and before there's like
Speaker 1: the big push moved of the summit. Yeah, it didn't
Speaker 1: get its famous name until eighteen fifties six, when it
Speaker 1: was named after Sir George Everest, Surveyor General of British
Speaker 1: India from eighteen thirty to eighteen forty three, who, by
Speaker 1: the way, never actually saw Everest the mountain. The people
Speaker 1: living around it, of course, had known about it for
Speaker 1: a long time before the British put this moniker to
Speaker 1: it and considered it holy. So the people living on
Speaker 1: the Tibetan side of the mountain it was Chomo Langma,
Speaker 1: which means Goddess mother, and then the Nepalese people to
Speaker 1: the south of it called it Sagarmata. Prior to being
Speaker 1: named Everest, British called it Peak fifteen. And I think
Speaker 1: this to me is why I this this feels like
Speaker 1: a late nineteenth century story to me, because it has
Speaker 1: this whole thread of British colonialism going through it in India.
Speaker 1: Uh especially Yeah, I mean, as I said, its roots
Speaker 1: are definitely there, and it really sort of loue in
Speaker 1: British consciousness in terms of the um the surveyors that
Speaker 1: we're doing this for quite some time. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: really was that sort of empire mentality that kind of
Speaker 1: I think fostered the It planted the seed and fostered
Speaker 1: the initial ideas of we're gonna go after that thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Even the Shrpa people who lived at the base of
Speaker 1: the mountain had never tried to climb it prior to
Speaker 1: the British fascination with it. But once Everest had been
Speaker 1: identified and named, its Alayre became completely irresistible to explorers.
Speaker 1: As mountaineering, which was still in its infancy in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, grew in popularity among thrill seekers and
Speaker 1: people who sort of had this desire to see what
Speaker 1: they could do and what they could conquer. In thirteen,
Speaker 1: Captain John Neal, who was building on the work of
Speaker 1: previous explorers who had been trying to unlock the secrets
Speaker 1: of this mountain, got closer to it than any outsider had,
Speaker 1: allegedly coming within forty miles of it. There were a
Speaker 1: number of political issues going on at the time. A
Speaker 1: revolution had just ended China's Qing dynasty and Tibet was
Speaker 1: making a move for independence, while Russia and Britain were
Speaker 1: engaged in what was called the Great Game as they
Speaker 1: made strategic moves for power in Central Asia. All of
Speaker 1: these complex relationships among nations made it difficult for British
Speaker 1: expeditions to get close to Everest, and Noel was allegedly
Speaker 1: shot at by a Tibetan guard. After a survey and
Speaker 1: expedition report was given to the Royal Geographical Society in
Speaker 1: London in March of nineteen nineteen by Captain John Noel.
Speaker 1: World War One had actually delayed the presentation until then,
Speaker 1: so there were several years gap between when he actually
Speaker 1: went on this expedition and when he was able to
Speaker 1: really meet with them and discuss it. In detail, and
Speaker 1: in this report he detailed the size and the scope
Speaker 1: of the mountain as well as the cultural and political
Speaker 1: landscape immediately surrounding it. And as a consequence of all
Speaker 1: of this information, the Mount Everest Committee was founded. And
Speaker 1: this committee, which was undon and staffed as a cooperative
Speaker 1: effort primarily between the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society,
Speaker 1: which were both British organizations, was focused solely on ascending Everest.
Speaker 1: Like even though it had been talked about kind of
Speaker 1: in adventurer circles and in the Geographical Society, this was
Speaker 1: like the first time that they really there was pen
Speaker 1: to paper, there was a plan, there was a committee founded,
Speaker 1: We're going to Everest. In nineteen twenty, the m EC
Speaker 1: negotiated with His Holiness the thirteenth Diali Lama, who gave
Speaker 1: special permission to the committee so climbers could access the
Speaker 1: north side of the mountain via Tibet. And throughout the
Speaker 1: early history of Everest assent attempts that m EC was
Speaker 1: frequently in talks with Tibet to try to get permission
Speaker 1: for each of their climbs and expeditions to climb the
Speaker 1: mountain began almost immediately after they got this permission. So
Speaker 1: when the Mount Everest Committee launched their ambitious campaign, the
Speaker 1: highest the human had ever climbed was twenty four thousand
Speaker 1: feet just uh seven thousand, three fifteen meters in the
Speaker 1: Karacorum Range, which sits at the border of China and Pakistan.
Speaker 1: No one actually knew if anyone could survive the conditions
Speaker 1: beyond that height, so they kind of knew they were
Speaker 1: throwing people into they didn't kind of know. They knew
Speaker 1: they were just throwing people into a potential death situation.
Speaker 1: So before we get to really the big expeditions, do
Speaker 1: you want to take a moment and to have a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor? Sure, alright, alright, So getting back
Speaker 1: to Everest, we're going to start with the first official
Speaker 1: British mission and this is and this first expedition was
Speaker 1: really reconnaissance only. Uh. The effort was led by Brigadier
Speaker 1: General Charles Granville Bruce, who was a man who had
Speaker 1: actually first discussed this idea of climbing Everest several decades
Speaker 1: earlier at the Royal Geographic Society. Bruce, who went by
Speaker 1: the nickname Bruiser, was a veteran climber and he was
Speaker 1: a fluent Apoli speaker. So the team mapped a coach,
Speaker 1: reached to the mountain and climbed it to about twenty
Speaker 1: three thousand feet which is about seven thousand meters, but
Speaker 1: that they had no intention of trying to get to
Speaker 1: the summit at this point. Yeah, I mean they really were.
Speaker 1: As much as there was this um desire and you know,
Speaker 1: passion to get to the summit, they were going about
Speaker 1: it in a pretty methodical way. They were trying to
Speaker 1: be very careful and gather as much information as they could.
Speaker 1: So uh. In ninety two. The next year, an expedition
Speaker 1: that was led by George Ingle Finch made the first
Speaker 1: real go at Everest and George Finch had been born
Speaker 1: in Australia but raised in Switzerland, and he had attended
Speaker 1: Geneva University while studying the physical sciences. Thanks to his
Speaker 1: chemistry knowledge, Finch was actually a pioneer in developing the
Speaker 1: oxygen that was used not only on his climb, but
Speaker 1: on many many expeditions after it. Major General John Jeffrey Bruce,
Speaker 1: who was cousin to Charles Grahamville Bruce accompanied Finch, although
Speaker 1: he wasn't a mountaineer and had never made a climb before,
Speaker 1: and this trek, as well as many after its, traveled
Speaker 1: along the Tibetan Plateau and followed the East Wrongbuck Glacier,
Speaker 1: attempting to ascend Everest from what's called the North Cole.
Speaker 1: Despite Jeffrey Bruce's lack of experience, this team set a
Speaker 1: record by ascending to twenty seven thousand, three hundred feet,
Speaker 1: which is about eight thousand three although they did not
Speaker 1: get to the summit. After they returned to London, uh
Speaker 1: Finch actually had a falling out with the Mount Everest
Speaker 1: Committee and he never climbed in the Himalayas again. He
Speaker 1: did remain involved with mountaineering, though, and he eventually became
Speaker 1: president of the Alpine Club, which is one of the
Speaker 1: groups that originally formed the MBC. The nineteen twenty four
Speaker 1: Mallory and Irvine expedition is famous, in large part because
Speaker 1: of the tragedy associated with it. Two lives were lost
Speaker 1: in this quest for the summit. George Herbert Lee Mallory,
Speaker 1: who was thirty eight at the time, was an extremely
Speaker 1: accomplished climber. He had been on the previous Mount Everest
Speaker 1: Committee expedition, and he was considered the most skilled climber
Speaker 1: of their group. On the other hand, Andrew Comban Irvine,
Speaker 1: who went by Sandy, wasn't terribly experienced as a mountaineer,
Speaker 1: and he was also very young. He was only twenty one.
Speaker 1: He was really fit and agile, however, and he was
Speaker 1: originally chosen for the mission to assist the oxygen officer
Speaker 1: Noel O'Dell. And O'Dell served as geologist as well as
Speaker 1: oxygen officer on the expedition, and he was actually the
Speaker 1: last to see Mallory and Irvine alive. Despite Irvine's lack
Speaker 1: of experience, due to his physical fitness, he was chosen
Speaker 1: by Mallory it's a partner with him on this final
Speaker 1: upward surge. Irvine's other skill that made him the perfect
Speaker 1: partner was his knowledge and dexterity with the oxygen tanks
Speaker 1: that are used on the mountain. Yeah, we'd think of
Speaker 1: oxygen tanks now, I think is being this thing that
Speaker 1: gets shipped to you and it's main in factory and
Speaker 1: they're they're well made, and they really were very fiddly,
Speaker 1: particularly at this point. They would have problems with the lines.
Speaker 1: They would you know, need to have things replaced on
Speaker 1: the go well, and even modern tanks, they don't make
Speaker 1: it equivalent to being anywhere near sea level. It's like
Speaker 1: barely taking the edge off of the whole oxygen deprivation situations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they had to be extremely careful with their use
Speaker 1: of it because they had limited amounts that they could
Speaker 1: carry with them and limited time in which they could
Speaker 1: just physically make it up and down the mountain, and
Speaker 1: they had to kind of meet out their oxygen usage
Speaker 1: to try to perfectly align with what they were going
Speaker 1: to need as they went. Uh. And it's worth noting
Speaker 1: that on previous expeditions Mallory had been against the use
Speaker 1: of oxygen. He wanted to summit without aid, but he
Speaker 1: really began to change his mind this time around. Irvine,
Speaker 1: who as we said, was expert at dealing with the
Speaker 1: notoriously problematic and heavy tanks, had also found a way
Speaker 1: to revise them to make them five pounds lighter. I
Speaker 1: think I read a thing and I didn't put it
Speaker 1: in these notes that that was basically a change of
Speaker 1: they had been their five pounds and it brought them
Speaker 1: down a thirty. So it wasn't like they were, you know,
Speaker 1: light and breezy to carry that's still a lot of
Speaker 1: weight when you're exhausted and can't breathe very well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So already two pushes to the summit without oxygen tanks
Speaker 1: by the expedition had failed, reaching only twenty eight thousand ft.
Speaker 1: So they tried this third attempt aid aided with oxygen
Speaker 1: uh and in the early afternoon on June eight, Noel O'Dell,
Speaker 1: who was trailing the two men in a support position,
Speaker 1: saw the pair near the base of the summit pyramid,
Speaker 1: and this is the last time that they were seen alive.
Speaker 1: A snowstorm blew in and Odell fell back to the
Speaker 1: north coal and kept watch for movement from above, and
Speaker 1: after two days with no sign of Mallory or Irvine,
Speaker 1: he climbed up to the tent they had left to
Speaker 1: make their summit charge, but they weren't there, and there
Speaker 1: were no signs that they had ever made it back
Speaker 1: to the camp. O'Dell thought they had been sure to
Speaker 1: summit when he saw them last, as they were going
Speaker 1: very strong when he spotted them, although we do not
Speaker 1: know to this day for certain if they ever did
Speaker 1: reach the top of the mountain. The other thing that
Speaker 1: most people remember about this expedition is a famous quote
Speaker 1: from Mallory. While touring the United States on a fundraising
Speaker 1: tour for the trip. In three a New York Times
Speaker 1: journalist asked him why he wanted to climb ever Everest,
Speaker 1: and his response was because it's there. And that's usually
Speaker 1: all you hear. I mean, that's famously quoted. Well, and
Speaker 1: when you said, you were doing these notes about how
Speaker 1: horrible it is to try to do it, and you're like,
Speaker 1: why do people do this? And I said, because it's there.
Speaker 1: Because that's one of the sort of sound bites that
Speaker 1: we've heard through the years. Uh. And the quote has
Speaker 1: been criticized as everything from being callous, ecocentric, flippant, and
Speaker 1: even as evidence of this mindset of ongoing British imperialism.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much impossible to talk about this whole thing
Speaker 1: without acknowledging how routed it is in British imperiods. Yeah. Uh, However,
Speaker 1: there was actually more to this response. That isn't the
Speaker 1: only thing he said. It wasn't like he dropped the
Speaker 1: mic and walked out. It does sound like a mic
Speaker 1: drop kind of quote. Mallory went on to say Everest
Speaker 1: is the highest mountain in the world, and no man
Speaker 1: has reached its summit, its existence as a challenge. The
Speaker 1: answer is instinctive apart I suppose of man's desire to
Speaker 1: conquer the universe. So still a little eccentric, but also
Speaker 1: you could see the route that it's he's kind of
Speaker 1: acknowledging that there's this psychological drive that we have when
Speaker 1: you can also make the same kind of arguments for
Speaker 1: exploring things like space and the ocean. Exactly. I keep
Speaker 1: in mind at this point that both of the poles
Speaker 1: had already been reached and virtually every corner of the
Speaker 1: world had been explored, so to explorer adventurers who you know,
Speaker 1: we're definitely a type of person that was very much
Speaker 1: in the public eye at this point. Everest was really
Speaker 1: the last unturned stone on the globe. Yeah, they forgot
Speaker 1: the ocean. I know, That's how I keept thinking, like,
Speaker 1: but what about below? But they weren't as excited about
Speaker 1: the water. I guess I am really excited about the ocean.
Speaker 1: I wish they would be a big ocean exploration. Well,
Speaker 1: there's lots of them. Perhaps we'll talk about them in
Speaker 1: the future. In nineteen seventy five, a Chinese climber found
Speaker 1: a body at twenty seven thousand feet which is eight thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred thirty which may have been Irvine. And then
Speaker 1: an expedition in May of nineteen ninety nine found Mallory's
Speaker 1: frozen corpse on the mountain at twenty six thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred sixty feet, which is eight thousand, one one hundred
Speaker 1: fifty seven. So at this point they've been on the
Speaker 1: mountain for seventy five years, and there have been recent
Speaker 1: expeditions in twenty eleven to search for Irvine. Those have
Speaker 1: not been successful. Yeah, they want to confirm whether or
Speaker 1: not that Chinese climber actually found the body of Irvine. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's also a camera that the pair took with
Speaker 1: them that was borrowed from another member of their team
Speaker 1: that still sits somewhere on Everest Uh. If it were
Speaker 1: to be found, it could be the piece of evidence
Speaker 1: that people need to determine whether or not they ever
Speaker 1: reached the summit. Yeah, and there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: theorizing about whether they did or didn't based on where
Speaker 1: their body were, like where Mallory's body was found. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, Mallory's body was definitely injured, although found so
Speaker 1: late that any number of things could have transpired in
Speaker 1: the the various years, so it's still a bit of
Speaker 1: a mystery, and one that if you look at any
Speaker 1: like Everest message boards or discussion groups or anything, is
Speaker 1: still hotly debated, which is kind of love. Um, before
Speaker 1: we get to the next expedition, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break and hear from a word about our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So let's return to our subject at hand. So in
Speaker 1: ninety three, expedition headed by Hugh Rettledge was unsuccessful at
Speaker 1: reaching the summit. Retledge, and he was in his late forties,
Speaker 1: was kind of an an usual choice for the team leader.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't really be able to make any summit pushes
Speaker 1: and he walked with a limp from an old injury.
Speaker 1: To summit attempts were made during this expedition uh and
Speaker 1: reached a height of twenty twenty feet or eight thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred sixty fives and a third go at the
Speaker 1: summit was actually abandoned pretty early on. They realized that
Speaker 1: conditions were not going to be successful, so that pretty
Speaker 1: much wrapped up the whole trip. Another year later, in
Speaker 1: ninety four, an expedition that was not mounted by the
Speaker 1: MBC was undertaken by Maurice Wilson. Wilson pretty foolishly tried
Speaker 1: to summit Everest alone, despite having no experience in glacier climbing,
Speaker 1: and you can imagine how that ended. He died on
Speaker 1: the mountain. Yeah. The night before Wilson left for this
Speaker 1: Everest adventure, a British paper called his plan quote an
Speaker 1: elaborate suicide, which turned out to be all too true.
Speaker 1: It apparently also really irritated him and he was something
Speaker 1: of like a I don't even know if daredevil is
Speaker 1: the right word, but he would get a wild hair
Speaker 1: and do things he had never done before, like I'm
Speaker 1: a fly play across I think the Alps, Like I know,
Speaker 1: he he had never piloted. He just jumped in. I
Speaker 1: need to fact check all of this, but I mean,
Speaker 1: reading about him, he just did lots of crazy stuff
Speaker 1: like that. It does seem a little like he had
Speaker 1: a death wish. I don't understand it. I'm like, why
Speaker 1: when there's a cozy home well, and I think that
Speaker 1: I've seen like the big Imax movie about Everest, which
Speaker 1: is about that summer a few years ago when so
Speaker 1: many people died um and at the beginning of it,
Speaker 1: I was like, maybe I could go home Everest one day,
Speaker 1: and within about I know, six six minutes, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is never a thing I will forever do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm in the same boat. I think it's beautiful when
Speaker 1: I understand the allure. But no, No. In ninety five,
Speaker 1: Eric Earl Shipton let an other expedition, and he had
Speaker 1: been on many Everest climbs already, and he was on
Speaker 1: one of the summit pushes during the nineteen thirty three
Speaker 1: Rutledge expedition. In nineteen thirty five, this was another reconnaissance
Speaker 1: mission that was meant to gather information to prepare for
Speaker 1: a summit attempt the next year, and according to his
Speaker 1: write up, he had several specific goals. Yeah, the expedition
Speaker 1: was aiming to collect information about monsoon and snow conditions.
Speaker 1: They wanted to look at possible alternate routes to the summit.
Speaker 1: They wanted to report on ice formations on the North
Speaker 1: Coal so proper equipment choices could be made. They were
Speaker 1: going to try out new mission personnel. They were going
Speaker 1: to experiment with food and equipment provisions to make sure
Speaker 1: they were carrying exactly the right amount, not overweighing themselves,
Speaker 1: not being under prepared, and they were going to perform
Speaker 1: stereo photogramic survey of the surrounding area of Everest so
Speaker 1: that they could expand on the survey work that was
Speaker 1: done by the first reconnaissance mission in ninety one. So
Speaker 1: at this point they had had several missions and they
Speaker 1: hadn't made it, so they kind of were like, let's regroup,
Speaker 1: do some more recon and put together another report. This
Speaker 1: expedition is noteworthy for the presence of one of the porters,
Speaker 1: tens Ignore Gay, and while the five trip was his
Speaker 1: first Everest climb, he would become a hugely important figure
Speaker 1: in Everest history. And this expedition also found Maurice Wilson's
Speaker 1: body and diary, so the gentleman who went at this
Speaker 1: alone was discovered by these people. In nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: Rutledge led a bid for the summit a second time.
Speaker 1: While he had already led one team, the Mount Everest
Speaker 1: Committee appointing him as leader was a little bit controversial.
Speaker 1: During his earlier expedition, his leadership had been questioned and
Speaker 1: many felt that someone both physically stronger and more assertive
Speaker 1: would be a better choice. Although he seemed to be
Speaker 1: universally liked. Yeah, everybody seemed to like him. They just
Speaker 1: thought he really wasn't the ideal man to lead a
Speaker 1: team going up a mountain that was extremely physically demanding,
Speaker 1: needed really strong leadership. It's like, he's a nice guy,
Speaker 1: but he's not for this. Uh. And this is also
Speaker 1: interesting because it's the first time that radio sets were
Speaker 1: included as part of the equipment. So prior to that
Speaker 1: there had been no radio communications done during any of
Speaker 1: the expeditions. This expedition, which once again included sharp Atten signor,
Speaker 1: had to be terminated early because of an early monsoon,
Speaker 1: and they didn't make any summit pushes. A nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight attempt was headed up by Harold William Tillman, who
Speaker 1: had also been on the nineteen thirty five reconnaissance expedition,
Speaker 1: and despite having had a lot of difficulty with acclimatizing
Speaker 1: during that nineteen five trip, Tillman was able to climb
Speaker 1: up to twenty seven thousand feet or eight thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred thirty meters, taking a route along in Northwest Ridge
Speaker 1: without the aid of oxygen. As with the nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: six expedition. This mission was cut short due to bad
Speaker 1: weather conditions. Noel O'Dell, the geologist who had made the
Speaker 1: last exchange with Mallory and Irvine, was also on this expedition,
Speaker 1: and then, uh, world affairs kind of got in the
Speaker 1: way of this exploration. World War two really put a
Speaker 1: stop to the expeditions, in part because the political landscape
Speaker 1: made permissions to enter the areas you would need to
Speaker 1: access the mountain almost impossible to obtain, and also because
Speaker 1: British resources were obviously focused elsewhere. So that's where we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause. Yeah, we'll come back in part two to
Speaker 1: talk about what happened after the war was over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we haven't gotten to the summit. We really haven't,
Speaker 1: in spite of many years trying reconnaissance missions the whole nine.
Speaker 1: It's uh so fascinating to me to think of this
Speaker 1: ongoing effort of just throwing people at it over and
Speaker 1: over trying to get this one thing. And you have
Speaker 1: to wonder, like, at some point, I'm sure they were
Speaker 1: discussing it, like what did this mean to them? And
Speaker 1: why were they so intent on it? But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that answer is probably different for a lot of
Speaker 1: people even today that do it. But do you also
Speaker 1: have some listener mail I do. Indeed, this one is
Speaker 1: from Ellen and she says, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I
Speaker 1: was pleasantly surprised when I saw your podcast on Crown
Speaker 1: Print Sado. I was a bit of of a history
Speaker 1: junkie during my childhood in Korea. Sato's tragic fate is
Speaker 1: such a popular story in Korea, and it has been
Speaker 1: constantly retold with creative license in Korean literature and even
Speaker 1: TV series. I thought it might be interesting to hear
Speaker 1: your perspective, especially as someone who had not had exposure
Speaker 1: to this story before. I thought I knew the story
Speaker 1: pretty well, but your podcast was full of surprises. I
Speaker 1: may be over generalizing here a bit, but Prince Sotto
Speaker 1: is often portrayed in Korea as a victim of political
Speaker 1: power play, and some historians even go so far as
Speaker 1: to say that Lady Hong was involved in conspiring against
Speaker 1: the Prince. But all of the details that you've included
Speaker 1: in the podcast really seemed to make the case that
Speaker 1: Soto was a deeply troubled serial killer. It prompted me
Speaker 1: to do a little bit more research, and the main
Speaker 1: supporting evidence for this conspiracy theory seems to be the
Speaker 1: obituary was written by Jong Joe, Sato's biological son. Here,
Speaker 1: Jong Joe portrays Sato as a bright prince who rolled
Speaker 1: out good policies and emphasizes that political factions at the
Speaker 1: time drove a wedge between Sto and his father, Young Joe.
Speaker 1: Prince Sotto was also posthumously given the title of King
Speaker 1: Jong Joe in. I just wonder why they would honor
Speaker 1: him like that given all the terrible things he's done.
Speaker 1: I'm still a bit unsure of how to make sense
Speaker 1: out of all of these theories. But thank you for
Speaker 1: re sparking my interest in history. I had a good
Speaker 1: time looking up and evaluating various theories and ideas surrounding
Speaker 1: Prince Sotto. I hope you do more similar podcasts like
Speaker 1: this one. Uh. Yeah, it's an interesting story and some
Speaker 1: of that came up in my research, where he has
Speaker 1: been sort of framed in different ways throughout history, but
Speaker 1: as sort of the evidence has come to pass, and
Speaker 1: as I said, his widows biography was hugely important in
Speaker 1: kind of revealing what was really going on, which I
Speaker 1: don't even think is entirely at odds with the way
Speaker 1: she's describing him as being portrayed a lot um. I
Speaker 1: don't think he was inherently intentionally a bad person. I
Speaker 1: think he was just mentally ill, and it was two
Speaker 1: sides of his psyche that we're fighting against each other
Speaker 1: at all times. It is. It's also just fascinating and
Speaker 1: I love hearing about Asian history, and so it was
Speaker 1: nice to get the perspective from someone that grew up
Speaker 1: in Korea and spent time with the story from uh,
Speaker 1: the childhood perspective on up, which is really cool. So
Speaker 1: thank you, Ellen, because that was awesome. UH. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you should do so.
Speaker 1: You can do that at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also connect with us at Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash missed in history, on Twitter at misst in history
Speaker 1: at misston history dot tumbler dot com, and on pinterest
Speaker 1: dot com slash missed in History. If you would like
Speaker 1: to learn more about what we've talked about today, you
Speaker 1: can go to our website and enter the word Everest
Speaker 1: in the search bar, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: will come up is are their dead bodies on Mount Everest?
Speaker 1: The short answer is yes, yes, so many talked about
Speaker 1: a couple of them, but there are many, many more,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other stuff too. Oh yes, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about that in episode two. Uh so, we
Speaker 1: hope to see you back here in the meantime. If
Speaker 1: you would like to research almost anything you can think about,
Speaker 1: you can do that at our website, which is how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics because it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Audible dot com is the leading provider of downloadable digital
Speaker 1: audio books and spoken word entertainment. Audible has more than
Speaker 1: one thousand titles to choose from to be download into
Speaker 1: your iPod or MP three player. Go to audible podcast
Speaker 1: dot com slash history to get a free audio book
Speaker 1: download of your choice when you sign up today.