Who is john cabot & what did he do?

Question

help me out :)

Answer 1

John Cabot was born in Genoa in 1450 and moved to England in 1484. Like Columbus and Magellan, Cabot thought there was a better route to the riches of the Orient by heading west instead of east. After being turned down by the monarchs of Spain and Portugal, Cabot was granted a charter to explore by Henry VII of England. He was given one small ship less than 70 feet long called the Matthew and a crew of 18 men. The expedition set sail from Bristol, England, on [May 2, 1497].

His heading was farther north than the Columbus routes and well out of the way of Spanish-held territories. Five weeks later on June 24, his crew sighted land somewhere in Newfoundland. Even though the distance was shorter than Columbus', it took longer because the winds were not as favorable up in the north. It was the first documented landing in Newfoundland since the Viking voyages centuries before.

Cabot was convinced he'd found an island off the coast of Asia and he named the island "new found land." He returned to England on August 6, 1497. Although he brought no spices or treasure back with him, he was able to map out the first details of the North American coast.

King Henry approved a second voyage and financed one ship. Four other ships were financed by merchants hoping to cash in on the new route to the Orient. In May 1498, the five ships set sail. One returned for repairs and the other four, with John Cabot as captain, disappeared and never returned.

Here is a little more

John Cabot's voyage of 1498

Henry VII's northern Columbus returned to Bristol on 6 August 1497. Cabot and everyone else thought that a new, shorter route to Asia had been found. No silks and spices, but these could not be far away - and it was known that Columbus himself had not yet found anything of great commercial value. So Cabot became a hero: "... he is called the Great Admiral and vast honour is paid to him", wrote Lorenzo Pasqualigo, a Venetian living in London, "and he goes dressed in silk, and these English run after him like mad ...."

Henry VII granted £10 "to hym that founde the new isle", and later a pension of £20 a year. In February 1498, Henry granted Cabot his second letters patent. He was authorized to take six ships, and go to the "londe and iles of late founde by the seid John".

In May 1498 Cabot set sail with a fleet of five vessels - a significant advance over the previous year.

This voyage is one of history's puzzles. We know the fleet sailed, that one ship returned damaged after a storm, and that John Cabot disappears from the historical record. Everything else is speculation.

It seems likely that some of the vessels retraced the 1497 route, explored the area in more detail, and returned to England with more geographical knowledge.

Cabot himself died. One tradition asserts that he was shipwrecked not far from Grates Cove, where he got ashore together with his son Sancio and some of the crew. There they died, either by starvation or at the hands of Beothuk Indians.

This voyage demonstrated that Cabot had not found an easy and profitable route to Asia. He had found codfish and trees, but not the great cities which could provide wealth and power. What he and Columbus had found, it was becoming clear, was a new continent which stood between Europe and Asia. This was a considerable disappointment to those who had backed Cabot's voyages.