John Cabot (1450-1499) was an Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America is commonly held to have been the first European encounter with the continent of North America since the Norse Vikings in the eleventh century. The official position of the Canadian and United Kingdom governments is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland. Sebastian Cabot (1474-1557) was John Cabot's son. He may have sailed with his father in the service of England, in May 1497. John Cabot, sailing from Bristol, took the small ship Matthew along the coasts of a "New Found Land".