Miscellany

20 min read

HISTORY’S GREATEST CONUNDRUMS AND MYSTERIES SOLVED

COMPILED BY JONNY WILKES AND DANNY BIRD

Did Edmund Hillary really pee on top of Everest?

TOP OF THE WORLD

More than 6,000 people have reached the summit of Mount Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s 1953 ascent

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SHORT ANSWER

As one of the first two people to step on the summit, he was hardly going to find facilities there, was he?

LONG ANSWER

For around 15 minutes on 29 May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood on top of the world, the first climbers to conquer Mount Everest. While only a brief stop, they had long enough to take in the views, bury mementoes, and for Hillary to, erm, ‘leave his mark’. Later, he revealed: “Having just paid our respects to the highest mountain in the world, I then had no choice but to urinate on it.”

This wasn’t some macho display of marking his territory. The New Zealander was just really desperate to go. During previous expeditions in preparation for an ascent of Everest, the British physiologist Griffith Pugh carried out research into the effects of extreme cold and altitudes on the human body, and concluded that a mountaineer had to drink much more water than initially thought in order to cope. To get their four-plus litres a day, the 1953 team carried special stoves adapted by Pugh so that they could melt all the ice they needed.

This, as Hillary discovered during his moment of celebration at the summit, filled their bladders rather quickly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he decided to omit his mountaintop pee break from his first accounts of the historic climb.

ARE WE THERE YET?
Hillary (left) and Norgay pictured during their historic climb – which included a fair few toilet breaks

What were the Punic Wars?

TAKING THE TRUNK ROAD
A Renaissance-era fresco depicts Hannibal’s famous journey across the Alps with his war elephants

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Answered by Professor Philip Freeman, author of Hannibal: Rome’s Greatest Enemy (Pegasus Books, 2022)

The Punic Wars were a trio of conflicts between ancient Rome and the North African city of Carthage (in modern Tunisia).

The first war, fought between c260–c240 BC, revolved around a contest for control over Sicily, and culminated in Carthaginian defeat. The Carthaginians instead expanded into Spain, a land rich in resources.

In 218 BC the Romans and Carthaginians clashed again, with the latter led b

This article is from...

History Revealed Magazine

23 November 2023

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