On May 1, 1963, at 1 p.m. local time, a 6-foot-5 Seattle outdoorsman — a shoe salesman, essentially, who had moonlighted as a mountain guide — planted an American flag in the snow at the top of the world. He had climbed through blizzard-force winds and minus-30-degree air, alongside a Sherpa named Nawang Gombu, and was running out of supplemental oxygen somewhere just below the summit. He pressed on anyway. Whatever lay ahead of him, at 29,029 feet, could not be worse than turning back.