Various Correspondents in England

Merchant and explorer John Cabot was born in Genoa and raised in Venice. He arrived in the port of Bristol, England, around the time that Columbus was making his first voyages. In Bristol, mariners had already been sending out expeditions into the Atlantic, and Cabot convinced England's Henry VII to support a journey across the ocean in search of a route to Cathay (China). His one small ship and crew of twenty made it across the North Atlantic in 1497—a shorter distance to the New World than Columbus's course—and cruised up the coast of Newfoundland for a few weeks before returning to England. This European landing on the North American continent sent shock waves throughout Europe in this age of discovery.

Although no eyewitness accounts of the expedition exist, the...