section_path: Atlantic Ocean (1419–1507)/The Americas: The New World/North America
section_name: North America
paragraph_text: North America
  
  That year John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto), also a commissioned Italian, got letters patent from King Henry VII of England. Sailing from Bristol, probably backed by the local Society of Merchant Venturers, Cabot crossed the Atlantic from a northerly latitude hoping the voyage to the "West Indies" would be shorter and made landfall somewhere in North America, possibly Newfoundland.
  
  In 1499 João Fernandes Lavrador was licensed by the King of Portugal and together with Pero de Barcelos they first sighted Labrador, which was granted and named after him. After returning he possibly went to Bristol to sail in the name of England.
  
  Between 1499 and 1502 the brothers Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real explored and named the coasts of Greenland and Newfoundland. Both explorations are noted in the 1502 Cantino planisphere.