Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Four ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Columbus, the first two after the explorer Christopher Columbus, and the other two after Columbus, Ohio, the capital of the state. The first Columbus was a 24-gun armed ship purchased for the Continental Navy in 1775, and active until she was captured and burned by the British in 1778. The second Columbus was a 74-gun ship of the line commissioned in 1819, and in periodic service until 1861 when she was sunk to prevent capture by the Confederates. The third Columbus (CA-74) was a heavy cruiser commissioned at the very end of World War II, converted to a guided missile cruiser CG-12 in 1959, and decommissioned in 1975. The fourth Columbus (SSN-762) is a Los Angeles-class attack submarine commissioned in 1993 and on active service as of 2003. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.