14th July: The Matterhorn

On this date in 1865 Edward Whymper and his team were the first to reach the 14,690 foot summit of the Matterhorn. It was Whymper’s seventh attempt. Four of his seven member team died during the descent.

1. The Matterhorn is the sixth-highest summit in the Alps at 4,478m (14,692 ft). It is shaped like a pyramid with each of its four faces facing one of the four compass points. Three of the faces are in Switzerland and the South face is in Italy.
2. It was formed millions of years ago by land masses crashing into each other. It is made of a rock called gneiss, which glitters in the Sun and hence its name, from the Middle High German verb gneist (to spark). It's thought this rock was African in origin.
3. In Italy, the Matterhorn is known as Monte Cervino and in French as Mont Cervin. It has even more different names in some local dialects - Gran Becca and Horu. The name Matterhorn is closely linked to the town of Zermatt. Zermatt means "towards the meadows" and Matterhorn means "Zermatt's Peak". There is some dispute as to whether Cervin and Cervino are derived from the Latin word for forest or for deer.
4. Horace Bénédict de Saussure was the first person to measure the mountain, in 1792 using a sextant and a 50-foot-long (15m) chain. He calculated its height as 4,501.7m (14,769 ft).
5. The first person to climb it was Edward Whymper in 1865. He tried and failed seven times before finally getting to the top with French mountaineer Michel Croz, the Swiss father and son Peter Taugwalder Sr. and Jr., Charles Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas and Douglas Robert Hadow. Sadly, Hadow, Croz, Hudson and Douglas fell to their deaths on the way back down. The rest only survived because the rope holding them together broke. The second ascent was just three days later, from the Italian side by a party led by guides Jean-Antoine Carrel and Jean-Baptiste Bich.
6. Six years later in 1871, Lucy Walker became the first woman to climb the Matterhorn. She did it wearing a long white skirt. Again the feat was repeated days later from the Italian side by Lucy's rival, Meta Brevoort.
7. About 500 people have died trying to climb the Matterhorn. There is a metal cross at the peak to commemorate them. In 2015, a team of mountain guides placed red lights among the ridge to commemorate the first ill-fated climbers.
8. In the late 19th century there was a proposal to build a railway and/or a cable car to the top, but local people objected strongly to it arguing "the peaks of the Alpine mountains are the ideological property of the entire Swiss population and hence are not for sale" to developers.
9. There is a 1/100 scale replica of the Matterhorn in Disneyland, California. It's 147 feet high and has a bobsled ride attached to it. Sometimes, mountain climbers dress up as Mickey Mouse and his friends and climb it.
10. The shape of the mountain was the inspiration behind the unusually shaped Toblerone chocolate bars. The shape was patented by the company so there are no other chocolate bars shaped like this. Since 1960, the Matterhorn has appeared on the packaging. Some people say they can see a Bear hidden in the image.