Italian explorer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) lands in North America, possibly in Newfoundland. Labrador, or Cape Breton Island. Commissioned by England's King Henry VII to find a westward route to Asia, his voyage was the first European one to North America since the Vikings and help establish an early English claim to the continent. Cabot had set sail from Bristol, England, on one ship, the Matthew, and made landfall on June 24, 1497.
Cabot made a second trip in 1498, from which he and his ships disappeared, but his explorations laid the groundwork for future English settlements in the area.