S.S. Victoria Luise entering Havana Harbor

The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), or Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. The Company's ships were among the largest and fastest connecting Europe with North American ports, including Hoboken and New Orleans. The Hamburg America Line lost almost the entirety of its fleet twice, as a result of World Wars One and Two, as a result of attacks and war reparations. This is just a few of the ships: Hansa = Sovetskij Soyuz America = America Ariadne 1 = Lady Gwendoline Augusta Victoria = Normannia, Kuban Batavia (1899-1924) = Polonia, Bavaria 3 (1905-1934) = Calixto Garcia, Bavaria (1921-1958) = Sontay, Belgravia (1899-1945) = Riga Bethania (1898-1944) = Parisian, Bitterfeld (1930-1943) = Mariso Blücher (1901-1929) = Leopoldina, Bosnia (1898-1924) = Frangestan Brasilia (1897-1920) = Norseman Bulgaria (1898-1924) = Canada, Caribia (1933-1983) = Ilitch Cincinatti (1908-1918) = Covington Cleveland (1909-1923) = King Alexander Columbia (1889-1907) = Rapido, Terek Corcovado (1907-1954) = Sueh Cordillera (1933-1979) = Russ Dania 1 (1889-1927) = Montserrat Dania (1904-1924) = Tsad Dortmund (1926-1971) = Lugela Emil Kirdorf (1922-1963) = Ardeal Prince Bismarck (1891-1924) = Venetia, Don, Moscow Fuerst Bismarck (1905-1935) = Friedrichsruf General Miter (1920-1950) = Arthur Habsburg (1906-1933) = Teutonia 4 Hamburg I (1899-1928) = President Fillmore Heluan (1908-1931) = City of Lucknow Hesse (1922-1946) = Fechenheim Holsatia V (1909-1928) = Frisia Empress Auguste Victoria (1905-1931) = Empress of Scotland Imperator (1913-1938) = SS Imperator Kiatschou (1900-1933) = Princess Alice King Friedrich August (1906-1931) = Montreal King William 2 (1907-1947) = Madawaska, US Grant Crown Princess Cecilie (1905-1926) = Princess Leuna (1927-1970) = Kozma Minin, Pulaski Los Angeles (1928-1956) = Roda Magdalena (1928-1980) = Rio Magdalena Moltke (1901-1925) = Pesaro Niederwald 2 (1921-1942) = Asuncion Normannia (1890-1906) = Patriota, L`Aquitaine Oakland (1929-1968) = Sperrbrecher IV, Oceana (1890-1927) = Scot, Alfonso XIII, Vadco Nunez de Balboa Orinoco (1927-1963) = Puebla, Juan de Garay Palatia 1 (1894-1925) = Nikolaiev, Norodovoletz Patria 3 (1938-1985) = Empire Welland Pennsylvania (1896-1924) = Nansemond Phenicia (1894-1937) = Kronstadt, Fleiss, Vulcain Polynesia (1904-1938) = Colonia, Hohenstein, Tel Aviv President Grant (1903-1951) = President Buchanan President Lincoln (1903-1918) = Servian Prince Adalbert (1902-1917) = Princetown, Alesia Prince Joachim (1903-1933) = Mocassin, Porto Rico Princess Victoria Luise (1901-1906) Rhineland 3 (1927-1941) = Behala Rhenania 3 (1904-1916) = Feltre Saarland (1923-1943) = Teiyo Maru Saxony II (1922-1949) = La Plata Sachsenwald 2 (1910-1932) = Earl of Forfar, San Francisco (1927-1943) = Rhakotis Sauerland 2 (1928-1944) = Sperrbrecher VII, Sibiria (1894-1916) = Hertha Silvia (1901-1938) = Rivera Steigerwald (1921-1943) = Santa Fé, Thessalia (1904-1933) = Galicia Thuringia (1923-1949) = General San Martin Toledo (1914-1933) = Kigoma Vaterland (1911-1938) = SS Leviathan Vancouver (1930-1959) = Curacao Venetia (1891-1917) = Bellagio Vogtland (1924-1943) = Berakit Westphalia III (1923-1946) = General Artigas Württemberg (1921-1947) = Jan Wellem Ypiranga (1908-1950) = Assyria The company built a large ocean liner terminal at Cuxhaven, Germany, in 1900. Connected directly to Hamburg by a dedicated railway line and station, the HAPAG Terminal at Cuxhaven served as the major departure point for German and European immigrants to North America until 1969 when ocean liner travel ceased. Today it serves as a museum and cruise ship terminal.

Founded by the Spanish, San Cristóbal de la Habana by Pánfilo de Narváez, was a small trading port and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates, and French corsairs. Pirate attacks convinced the Spanish Crown to protect its ships heading to Spain by assembling them in one large fleet, which would traverse the Atlantic Ocean protected by the Spanish Armada (Spanish Navy). After 1561, all ships headed for Spain were required to assemble in the Havana Bay waiting for the best weather, and together, departing for Spain by September. This boosted commerce and development of the adjacent city of Havana. Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, in order to be taken by the fleet to Spain. Ships also had to be supplied with food, water, and other products. In 1563, the Spanish Governor of the island moved his residence from Santiago de Cuba to Havana, the de-facto capital of the island. By the middle of the 18th century, Havana had more than 70,000 people, and was the third-largest city in the Americas, ahead of Boston and New York. The city was captured by the British in 1762 but returned it to Spain in exchange for Florida. Slavery was legal in Cuba until 1886 and after the Confederate States of America were defeated in the American Civil War in 1865, many former slaveholders continued to run plantations by moving to Havana. As trade between the Caribbean and North American states increased, Havana became a flourishing and fashionable city. During this period Havana became known as the Paris of the Antilles. At the beginning of the 20th century, Cuba was occupied by the United States. The US occupation ended in1902 and Cuba became a republic. U.S. prohibition on alcohol from 1920 to 1933 helped Havana to become a destination for sailing, car racing, musical shows, organized crime, and sex tourism. Luxury hotels, casinos, nightclubs were producing more revenue than Las Vegas. In 1958, about 300,000 American tourists visited the city. After the revolution of 1959, Fidel Castro promised to improve social services, public housing, and official buildings. Communism model, expropriation of all private property was followed by the U.S. embargo, which hit Havana especially hard. In 1991 Soviet subsidies ended, and a severe economic downturn made many to believe that communism soon collapse, however, contrary to events in Europe, Cuba's communist government persists to this day.

Set of images depicting various harbors, ports, and piers together with ships, fishing and sailing boats, and all types of haven-like places and views. All large image sets on Picryl.com are made in two steps: First, we picked a set to train AI vision to recognize the feature, and after that, we ran all 25M+ images in our database through an image recognition machine. As usual, all media in the collection belong to the public domain. There is no limitation on the dataset usage - educational, scientific, or commercial.