Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG (Order of the Garter), ONZ (Order of New Zealand), KBE (Order of the British Empire) (20 July 1919 - 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer (mountaineering), explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest - see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt (John Hunt, Baron Hunt). He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential (Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century) people of the 20th century.

Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school, making his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force) as a navigator during World War II. Before the successful expedition in 1953 to Everest, he had been part of a reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 and an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958. He would later also travel to the North Pole.

Following his ascent of Everest he devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa (Sherpa (people)) people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded. Through his efforts many schools and hospitals were built in this remote region of Nepal.