Grade level: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, e, i, s.

Celebrating the great Age of Discovery in the late 15th century, Peter Firstbrook called upon his knowledge of the sea and his love of sailing to reproduce Englishman John Cabot's 1497 landing on the North American continent--even down to the boat itself. His six-week voyage and the years of research, building, and practice leading up to it are chronicled in this book as well as in a six-part BBC/PBS series. 192 photos, 96 in color. Maps.

Published to coincide with the five-hundredth anniversary of Cabot's voyage and with the construction of a replica of the Matthew, this book provides a richly-illustrated glimpse at the dawn of the Age of Exploration. Drawing on paintings, maps and illustrations from Europe's finest museums, Brian Cuthbertson brings to vivid life the places and events that shaped Cabot's life, and his age, setting down available information on the original trip and the uncertain evidence of Cabot's landfall in North America. Photos of the Matthew replica being built and under full sail also illustrate the text. John Cabot & the Voyage of the Matthew is a vivid, colourful evocation of the spirit of a great explorer and his times.

Examines the facts and theories surrounding the voyages taken to North America by the English explorer John Cabot in the late 1490s.

On June 24, 1497, Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto—better known as John Cabot—became the first European of his day to record an official landing on the North American continent. Funded by British merchants and sailing under the English flag, Cabot claimed his discovery of the “New founde land” for England. His claim cleared the way for future English settlements in the New World. On his return voyage to Bristol, England, Cabot sailed his tiny ship Matthew through rich fishing grounds off the Newfoundland coast now known as the Grand Banks. His crew hauled in huge quantities of cod simply by lowering weighted baskets into the sea. This find led directly to the great rise of the Newfoundland cod fishery. Born around 1450, probably in Genoa, Italy, John Cabot lived at about the same time as Christopher Columbus. Like Columbus, Cabot sailed west to find a new route to China and Japan. He found the American continent instead.

Excerpt from The Discovery of North America by John Cabot: The Alleged Date and Landfall Also the Ships Name, the "Matthew," a Forgery of Chatterton? Soncino to the Duke of Milan, August 24 and December 18, 1497. Pasqualigo states that John Cabot coasted three hundred leagues [of the newly discovered This statement is corroborated by Soncino, who saw the description of the country discovered by Cabot marked in a chart and on a solid globe which the latter had made.2 These three hundred leagues would have amounted to six hundred, as Cabot had to retrace his course when sailing homeward. Now John Cabot was already in London on August 10, 1497, which implies that he had reached Bristol about five days earlier. If we accept the alleged date of June 24 as that of his landfall in America, it leaves only forty-two days between his arrival within sight of the New World and his return to England? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Explore the voyage of John Cabot, the Italian navigator who explored Newfoundland for England in the search for a northwest passage to Asia.