Who is Junko Tabei to whom today's Google Doodle is dedicated

New Delhi, Sep 22: Today's Google Doodle is dedicated to Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei's 80th birthday. Tabei was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and also the first woman to climb all seven highest peaks on every continent.

She was born on 22 September 1939 and passed away in 2016. Had she lived, to day would have been her 80th birthday. She reached the summit of Everest on May 16, 1975, as the leader of the climbing party of an all-female Japanese team. In 1992, she became the first woman to complete the "Seven Summits," reaching the highest peaks of the seven continents.

Junko was born in Miharu, Fukushima, the fifth daughter in a family of seven children. Her first summit was nearby Mount Nasu with her teacher in the fourth grade. Tabei devoted her adult life to scaling peaks, climbing the tallest mountains in more than 70 countries.

""Most Japanese men of my generation would expect the woman to stay at home and clean house," she was quoted as saying in an interview.

"I want to climb even more mountains," she said in a 1991 interview with The Associated Press

After Everest, she climbed Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 1980, Aconcagua in Argentina in 1987, McKinley (now known as Denali) in Alaska in 1988, Elbrus in Russia in 1989, Vinson Massif in Antarctica in 1991 and Carstensz Pyramid (also known as Puncak Jaya) in Indonesia in 1992.

She died on October 20, 2016 of stomach cancer. She was 77. Even while undergoing cancer treatment, she continued to climb.