Mount Everest

High atop the Himalayas rests a peak higher then any other on Earth.   Most call it Mount Everest, and at 29,000 feet above sea level it is regarded as the highest peak on Earth.   The summit ridge marks the border between Nepal and Tibet.   It was named by an Indian surveyor- general, Sir Andrew Waugh, in honor of his predecessor and mentor Sir George Everest.   A Bengali mathematician, Radhanath Sikdar, first discovered Everest as the highest peak on Earth in 1852.  
Before it was called Everest it had gone by many other names.   The people of Nepal called the mountain Sagarmatha (goddess of the sky), while the people of Tibet referred to it as Chomolungma   (mother of the universe).   To the rest of the world it was known as peak XV.   It was not until Sikdar, stationed in the Indian station Dehra Dun, first calculated that Everest was the highest peak that anyone really paid attention to it.   Inmight have felt like the day Sikdar finishes his calculations, "A clerk rushed into the chambers of Sir Andrew Waugh, India's surveyor general, and exclaimed that a Bengali computer named Radhanath Sikhdar had "discovered" the worlds highest mountain."p3.   (A computer was a job back then and not a machine.)   9 years after finding out that it was the highest peak in the world Waugh named the mountain after his old boss Sir George Everest.
  Sikhdar calculated that the peak was at 29,005 feet high which was incredibly within 30 feet of what has been calculated now days using GSP.   Located on the border between Nepal and Tibet, Everest is considered the highest mountain above sea level.   Other mountains could technically be called taller mountains but none travel as far into the atmosphere.   Mauna Loa in Hawaii is tallest when measured from its base while Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest peak from the earth's center.