Ellery Schempp of the Pittsburgh Explorer’s Group Nanga Parbat Expedition which was to be the first American group to reach the peak of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. Schempp, who is retired, currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Stephen D. Solomon, a professor at New York University, has written a book about Schempp and the Supreme Court case entitled "Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer". On November 26, 1956, Schempp staged a protest against the school requirement that each student read 10 Bible passages and the Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. That day he
Nanga Parbat team were all strong climbers, none had Himalayan experience, and poor planning (particularly an inadequate number of porters), coupled with bad weather, prevented the team progressing far beyond the Rakhiot Peak northeast of the Nanga Parbat summit, reached by Peter Aschenbrenner and Herbert Kunigk, but they did establish the feasibility of a route via Rakhiot Peak and the main ridge. Merkl led another expedition in 1934, which was better prepared and financed with the full backing of the new Nazi government. Early in the expedition Alfred Drexel died, probably of high altitude pulmonary edema. The Tyrolean climbers Peter Aschenbrenner and