On this day in 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. First attracted to climbing at age 10, Tabei began climbing seriously in 1962 and formed the Ladies’ Climbing Club in Japan. Tabei, who is just 4 feet 9 inches tall, has climbed more than 70 major peaks around the world, and in 1992, she became the first woman to summit the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. Tabei is the director of the Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan, an organization dedicated to preserving mountain environments. She has been heard to say, “I can’t understand why men make all this fuss about Everest—it’s only a mountain.”