'Then in 1497 five years after Columbus first stumbled accross the carribean while searching for a westward route to the spice-producing lands of Asia, Giovanni Caboto sailed from Bristol, not in search of the Bristol secret but in the hopes of finding the route to America that Columbus had missed. Caboto was Genovese who is remembered by the English name of John Cabot, because he undertook this voyage for Henry VII of England. The English being in the North were far from the spice route and so paid exponentially high prices for spices. Cabot reasoned correctly that the British Crown and the Bristol Merchants would be willing to finance a search for a northern spice route. In June, after only thirty-five days at sea Cabot found land, though it wasn't Asia. It was a vast rocky coastline that was ideal for salting and drying fish, by a sea that was teeming with cod. Cabot reported on the cod as evidence of the wealth of this new land, New Found Land, which he claimed for England. Thirty seven years later, Jaques Cartier arrived, was credited with "discovering" the mouth of the St. Lawrence, planted a cross on the Gaspe Peninsula, and claimed it for France. He also note the presence of 1000 Basque fishing vessels.'
('Cod - A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World' by Mark Kurlansky, Vintage UK Random House 1999 p28-29 )
Just like when they landed on the moon Armstrong and Aldrin found that someone had already opened 3 nightclubs and two take-aways in the sea of tranqulity alone..........
