Mount Everest

And the dispute on the Mount Everest does not stop at its height. Also its name is a controversial issue. An angry article appeared in the Chinese People's Daily magazine in 2002, in which the author claimes that the highest mountain in the world should bear the name "Chomolungma" – as the Tibetans and the Chinese call it. Already 280 years ago, this name could be found on a Chinese map. The British surveyor George Everest, after whom the mountain was named, would possibly agree with this demand. He was not at all happy that he should be the eponym for this natural wonder.

Mount Everest was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first people to climb the summit without oxygen on May 8, 1978.

By the year 2010, more than 5000 ascents were performed. Since the 1980s, more and more commercial expeditions came up, so that even less experienced climbers succeeded to climb the highest point on earth. The dark side of this development is obvious: Until 2013, the mountain claimed the lives of 250 people and the number of those who will never return from the mountain will continue to rise.