John cabot early life
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John Cabot
Italian navigator and explorer (c. 1450 – c. 1500)
This article is about the 15th century explorer. For other uses, see John Cabot (disambiguation).
John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto[dʒoˈvannikaˈbɔːto]; c. 1450 – c. 1499)[2] was an Italian[2][3]navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.
Name and origins
Cabot is known today as Giovanni Caboto in Italian, Zuan Caboto in Venetian, Jean Cabot in French, and John Cabot in English. This resulted from a once-ubiquitous European tradition of nativizing names in local documents, something often adhered to by the actual pers
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John Cabot
(Related Articles: For other related articles view the Exploration and Settlement Table of Contents Early Exploration section.)
Not very much is known for certain about John Cabot – or Zuan Caboto, to use his original Italian name. We do not even know precisely when and where he was born. It is likely, though, that he was born around 1455 in Gaeta, near Naples, and was the son of a merchant.
His name is also associated with Genoa, and he may have spent some time there as a boy. But by 1461 Cabot was living in Venice, where he became a citizen. In about 1482 he married a Venetian woman, Mattea, and they had three sons: Ludovico, Sebastiano and Sancio.
John Cabot
A detail from "The departure of John and Sebastian Cabot from Bristol on their first voyage of discovery, 1497." Oil on canvas by Ernest Board, 1906.
From J.R. Smallwood, ed., The Book of Newfoundland, Vol 1. (St. John's: Newfoundland Book Publishers, 1937)
A merchant like his father, Cabot traded in spices with the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, and became an expert mariner. Valuable good
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John Cabot
(1450-1500)
Who Was John Cabot?
John Cabot was a Venetian explorer and navigator known for his 1497 voyage to North America, where he claimed land in Canada for England. After setting sail in May 1498 for a return voyage to North America, he disappeared and Cabot's final days remain a mystery.
Early Life
Cabot was born Giovanni Caboto around 1450 in Genoa, Italy. Cabot was the son of a spice merchant, Giulio Caboto. At age 11, the family moved from Genoa to Venice, where Cabot learned sailing and navigation from Italian seamen and merchants.
Cabot officially became a Venetian citizen in 1476 and began conducting trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Records indicate that he got into financial trouble and left Venice as a debtor in November 1488. During this time, Cabot became inspired by the discoveries of Bartolomeu Dias and Christopher Columbus.
Discoveries
In 1497, Cabot traveled by sea from Bristol to Canada, which he mistook for Asia. Cabot made a claim to the North American land for King Henry VII of England, setting the course for England's rise to powe
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