Engraving depicting "the discovery of North America" by John and Sebastian Cabot. 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 since the Norse Vikings in the 11th century. The official position of the Canadian and United Kingdom governments is that Cabot landed on the island of Newfoundland. Sebastian Cabot, John Cabot's son, may have sailed with his father.