We do not know precisely when John Cabot – or Giovanni Caboto, to use his original, Italian name, was born, or even where he was born. It is most likely, though, he was born around 1455 in Gaeta, near Naples, Italy, and was the son of a spice merchant.

His name is also associated with Genoa, and he may have spent time there as a boy. By 1461 Cabot had become a citizen of Venice. In about 1482 he married a Venetian woman, Mattea, and they had three sons: Ludovico, Sebastiano and Sancio.

Like his father, Cabot traded in spices with the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, and became an expert mariner. Valuable goods from Asia: spices, silks, precious stones and metals — were brought either overland or up the Red Sea for sale in Europe. Venetians played a prominent part in this trade. In about 1490, Cabot and his family moved to Valencia in Spain. Like his countryman Christopher Columbus, Cabot wanted to be part of an expanding frontier of exploration, the Atlantic Ocean. The leaders were the Portuguese and the Spanish. The monarchs of both countries wanted to find new routes to Asia and its riches — routes which would avoid the Mediterranean and the virtual Italian monopoly on the spice trade. Europeans also wanted to spread Christianity, and to contain Islam.

Portugal and Spain were not interested in John Cabot. The Portuguese pioneered their route to Asia by sailing down the African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. Columbus had returned in triumph from his first transatlantic voyage in 1493 — he reached the Caribbean, but thought it was part of Asia — so the Spanish thought they'd found a route to the east.

In 1494-95 Cabot settled his family in the port of Bristol, England. He approached the Bristol merchants and King Henry VII with a scheme to reach Asia by sailing west across the north Atlantic. He estimated this would be shorter and quicker than Columbus' southerly route.

Cabot received the backing he'd been refused in Spain and Portugal. The Bristol merchants had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic since the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities. Some historians think Bristol mariners might even have unofficially reached Newfoundland and Labrador before Cabot arrived on the scene.

On March 5, 1496, Henry VII issued letters patent to Cabot and his sons authorizing them to sail to all parts "of the eastern, western and northern sea" to discover and investigate, "whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians."

Cabot's first try in 1496 was a failure. A letter from John Day, an English merchant in the Spanish trade, to Christopher Columbus in 1497 says "he [Cabot] went with one ship, he had a disagreement with the crew, he was short of food and ran into bad weather, and he decided to turn back."

There is little information about the 1497 voyage. If Cabot kept a log or made maps, they have disappeared. The evidence is scanty: a few maps from the early 16th century which appear to contain information obtained from Cabot, and some second-hand reports.

There are many different theories and opinions.

The Matthew left Bristol sometime in May, 1497. Some scholars think it was early in the month, others towards the end. It is generally agreed he sailed down the Bristol Channel, across to Ireland, and then north along Irish coast before turning out to sea.

Cabot's point of departure was somewhere between 51 and 54 degrees north latitude, with most modern scholars favouring a northerly location. The crossing was relatively easy with only one gale reported. After 34 days he sighted birds and land. Legend has it he shouted "Oh Buena Vista" or "Oh Good Sight," as he approached what is now Cape Bonavista on Newfoundland's east coast.

Cabot explored the region for about a month and arrived back in Bristol on August 6, 1497.

Cabot's second attempt to visit the New World ended in disaster. He left Europe in 1498 and was never heard from again.

The acceptance of Cape Bonavista as Cabot's landfall site is based primarily on maps produced after the discovery. John Mason's map (1615-1621), marks Bonavista as "A Caboto primum reperta," or "First found by Cabot."

Cape North, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, bases its claim on a map attributed to Sebastian Cabot, John Cabot's son. The map's authenticity has been widely questioned, as has Sebastian's. The younger Cabot is suspected of doctoring the map for political reasons.

Final word: it is unlikely that Cabot, a skilled and experienced navigator, would have sailed from England and missed Newfoundland before hitting the Cape Breton shore. There were no Geographical Positioning Systems in 1497, so it's unlikely Cabot said, "we'll stop in here on the way back." One thing we do know about him is that he was clean shaven. One of the Matthew's crew was a barber.