In 1497, Italian navigator John Cabot, sailing under the English flag for King Henry VII, reached the North American mainland, specifically the coast of Newfoundland. This voyage marked the first European exploration of the North American continent since the Viking expeditions centuries earlier. Cabot's claim laid the groundwork for future English colonization and the expansion of European influence in the New World.

John Cabot's exploration of Newfoundland in 1497 sparked English interest in overseas expansion, which became a prominent theme in Elizabethan poetry. Poets like Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare later incorporated ideas of discovery and empire into their works, reflecting the cultural and political climate of the time.