Nirmal Purja

pWotD Episode 3378: Nirmal Purja Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 458,352 views on Saturday, 1 August 2026 our article of the day is Nirmal Purja.Nirmal Purja (known as Nims or Nimsdai) (Nepali: निर्मल पुर्जा; 25 July 1983 – 30 July 2026) was a Nepalese-British mountaineer. Before beginning a career in mountaineering, he served in the British Army with the Brigade of Gurkhas and later in the Special Boat Service (SBS), the special forces unit of the Royal Navy.Purja climbed all 14 eight-thousanders (peaks above 8,000 metres or 26,000 feet) in six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen between April and October 2019; this was a record until it was broken in 2023. Purja was the first person to reach the summits of Mount Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu within 48 hours. In 2021, he and a team of nine other Nepalese climbers completed the first winter ascent of K2. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mountaineers in history and a pioneer of modern mountaineering. In July 2026, Purja and nine other climbers died in an avalanche on Pakistan's Broad Peak.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 03:16 UTC on Sunday, 2 August 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Nirmal Purja on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm generative Ruth.