Hans Heinrich Josef Meyer (March 22, 1858 - July 5, 1929) was a German geographer who is credited with being the first European to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. Born in Hildburghausen, Meyer studied history and science in Leipzig, Berlin, and Strasburg, after which he traveled the world, including North America, India, and South Africa. In 1884, he joined his father's (Herrmann Julius Meyer (1826 - 1909)) publishing firm, the Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig. He became one of the directors the following year. Meyer led three expeditions to Kilimanjaro or the region in 1887, 1888, and 1889 respectively. He made his first summit attempt in 1887, but was forced to turn back at the base of Kibo (one of Kilimanjaro's three summits), discovering he lacked the necessary equipment for deep snow and ice. The following year, 1888, he and Austrian cartographer Oscar Baumann explored the Usambara region with the intention of continuing to Kilimanjaro, but were forced to cut their expedition short due to the s-called Abushiri Revolt. (Both men were captured and held as prisoners and were only released after a large ransom was paid.) Meyer returned to Kilimanjaro in 1889, this time with Ludwig Purtscheller, the celebrated Austrian mountaineer. Meyer and Purtscheller reached the summit of Kibo on October 6, 1889, Purtscheller's 40th birthday. Kibo would not be summitted again until for another twenty years. Meyer became a professor at the University of Leipzig in 1889 and was appointed director of the Institute of Colonial Geography at the University of Leipzig in 1915. Meyer also undertook mountain climbing expeditions in the Canary Islands and Ecuador.



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