Everest's 100 years of destiny and death on the roof the world

The first documented climbing expedition on Mount Everest began a century ago this year, helping ignite an enduring and sometimes deadly obsession with conquering the world's highest mountain.

(CNN) — It's a fact every school child knows: Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world.

It's a truth that feels ancient and inevitable, an unassailable certainty that draws hundreds of climbers to attempt the summit each year -- because, in the words of George Mallory, one of the first mountaineers to conquer it, "it's there."

However, this fascination with the mountain whose historic Tibetan name is Qomolangma ("Holy Mother") is a modern phenomenon and the first reconnaissance mission to its slopes was completed just a century ago, on October 25, 1921.