On 2 June 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. As throngs of people lined the procession route to Westminster Abbey in the rain, news rang out over a loudspeaker that the first ascent of Everest had finally been completed on 29 May by two members of a British expedition team.
4,500 miles away on Everest's Western Cwm at an altitude of 5,400 metres, four and a half hours ahead of London time, five men lay in a tent and listened, fatigued but rapt, to radio coverage of the coronation. Four days earlier, one of those men, the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary, had stood on 'the roof of the world' on the summit of Everest alongside Tibetan-born Tenzing Norgay.
It was thanks to the cunning and speed of a journalist at The Times that these two major historical events coincided and would forever be inextricably linked. Jan Morris later wrote about her career-defining 1954 scoop in 'The Effect of Everest' for The Alpine Journal in 1993, describing the whole affair as 'the gradual metamorphosis of a sporting occasion into a historical footnote.'
The Times Everest supplement has its front page with a "tensing norkey GM" as one of the successful climbers! What is this exactly? They got both of his names wrong!
I originally had 'crowned', but it was a bit stilted with 'crowds' coming just after. Seems like it still has some modern usage in the news. Crowned/people sounds less clunky though, thanks!