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Biography : John Cabot
John Cabot was born in Genoa, Italy . His name in Italian was Giovanni Caboto. As a boy, he moved to Venice, Italy, with his parents. He grew up there and became a mapmaker and trader. He sailed the Mediterranean Sea between Venice and Egypt, trading Italian goods for spices from the Far East. Cabot married and had three sons. He moved to Bristol, England, in the 1480's, and was living there when Christopher Columbus made his historic voyage to America for Spain in 1492.It was probably on hearing of Columbus's discovery of 'the Indies' that he decided to find a route to the west for himself. He went with his plans to England.
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After King John II of Portugal and King Ferdinand of Spain refused to finance the voyage , King Henry VII agreed to assist him.In 1497, King Henry VII commissioned Cabot to sail west and claim new lands for England. The voyage led to an unexpected new land - not the Far East, as Caboto had hoped, but the eastern coast of an immense continent. Giovanni Caboto would go down in history as John Cabot, the explorer who claimed the New Founde Land for a British King.
The discovery impressed Henry VII and the king agreed to finance another Cabot voyage. A year after his great discovery, John Cabot sailed out of Bristol England in May, 1498.This time there was no repeat of the great discovery and only one of the five ships in Cabot's flotilla made it back home across the treacherous North Atlantic.
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| John's son Sebastian also sought the glory of discovery and lead an expedition on a search for a northwest passage to Cathay in 1508. After a voyage to South America in 1526, Sebastian Cabot retired from the hands-on side of exploring and lived out his remaining years as a 16th century consultant to English explorers who continued the search for the elusive northwest passage.
Continue................His Voyages
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