Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated as a Dutch shipping line, a passenger line, a cargo line and a cruise line operating primarily between the Netherlands and North America. As part of the company's legacy, it was directly involved in the transport of many hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the Netherlands to North America. Holland America has been a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation since 1989. History Dutch shipping and passenger line (1873–1989) Holland America Line was founded in 1873, as the Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Dutch-American Steamship Company), in short Holland-Amerika Lijn, a shipping and passenger line. It was headquartered in Rotterdam, in the building which is now the Hotel New York. It provided service from its European base to the Americas over the North Atlantic. The company was formed as a result of the reorganization of an earlier company, Plate, Reuchlin & Co. The company's first ship was the original , which sailed its 15-day maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on October 15, 1872. Other services were started to other new world ports, including Hoboken, Baltimore and South America. Cargo service to New York started in 1909. During the first 25 years, the company carried 400,000 people from Europe to the Americas. Other North American ports were added during the early 20th century. Though transportation and shipping were the primary sources of revenue, in 1895, HAL offered its first vacation cruise. Its second vacation cruise, from New York to Palestine, was first offered in 1910. One notable ship was the elegant 36,000-gross register ton of 1937, it and being the only two liners built in the 1930s to make a profit. At the start of the Second World War, HAL had 25 ships; nine remained at war's end. At the beginning of the war, the Westernland acquired from the Red Star Line in 1939, berthed at Falmouth, England, became the seat of the Dutch government. The Nieuw Amsterdam sailed half a million miles transporting 400,000 military personnel. After the war, the shipping line was instrumental in transporting a massive wave of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada and elsewhere. Another notable ship during the post-war period was the of 1959, one of the first North