1. The prize was offered by Horace Bénédict de Saussure, praised by many as the first modern meteorologist and inventor of the solar oven.
2. Mont Blanc was first climbed in 1786 by Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
3. The first woman to reach the summit, in 1808, was Marie Paradis, a maidservant in Chamonix.
4. On reaching the summit, she is said to have begged her companions to throw her into the nearest crevasse to end her exhaustion and misery.
5. According to an 1860 treaty which is still valid, the border line between France and Italy passes through the summit of Mont Blanc.
6. The Mont Blanc Tunnel under the mountain took eight years to build and was finished in 1965. It is more than seven miles long.
7. A Jacuzzi party was held at the summit in 2007 after 20 people carried a hot tub up there.
8. In 2013, Basque speed-climber Kilian Jornet climbed to the top and down again in 4hr 57min.
9. The first dog to climb Mont Blanc with its own paws was Tschingel from Switzerland in 1875.
10. Over 30,000 people try to climb Mont Blanc every year and more than 1,400 have died trying.
