212 is an interesting number. First, it's the boiling point of water, measured in the one true Fahrenheit scale. It's also the area code for New York City. Start adding the numbers from the right and you get 23. So, with that illuminated number in mind, let's see what else comes up. Fnord.
Archimedes, one history's greatest mathematicians and scientists, was killed in 212 BC by, according to Livy, a Roman soldier who didn't recognize him. It seems that he was busy trying to solve a problem and wasn't very attentive to one of the soldiers who was busy sacking Syracuse and taking prisoners. Those wacky scientists, always getting into trouble.
Germany is building an advanced attack submarine: The U212. There's a connection there between Archimedes and water, via the water screw which he (probably) invented, but which everyone at least believes he invented. But that's not all: Archy also kept himself busy by building some nifty devices for city defense, including Archimedes' Claw, a particularly nifty device which was used to sink ships. Sure, it sank them by picking them up and rolling them over and not by torpedoing them, but the goal was still to make the ship stop floating.
And that's not all! Archimedes also invented (but this is dubious) a device that used mirrors to concentrate the light of the sun in order to set ships on fire. Now, while the German submarine doesn't (officially) carry a high-power laser, there's still the "attack and sink ships" angle. And looking at the companies supplying bits for the submarine, right at the bottom is Sunlight, which makes submarine batteries. So sunlight is, in fact, powering the anti-ship weapon. Oh, and then you have that little connection between extreme heat and boiling water, too.
So let's look at 212 A.D.. The emperor Aurelius Antoninus, who went by the catchy nickname "Caracalla", enacted the Constitutio Antoniniana, which extended Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire.
Ok, I'm not sure how this fits in with water, heat, and sinking ships, but it's still interesting, and I bet it caused all sorts of trouble. He did this after killing his co-emperor and brother, Geta, whose image he had removed from monuments. It's good to be the (surviving) king. Caracalla also murdered his wife that year, so he kept himself pretty darn busy. So what about 1212 AD? I found two big things: First, the Christians in Spain dealt a crippling blow to the Islamic armies, marking the beginning of the end of Muslim rule in Spain. Of course, it's not like that happened overnight. Also in 1212 we have the spectacularly unsuccessful Children's Crusade, wherein thousands of children fought the infidels by starving or being sold into slavery before getting near the Holy Land.
So, all in all, 212 isn't the most auspicious number. But it certainly has a strong connection to warfare and violence. So am I claiming that this is some devious use of numbers to instill potential Army recruits with thoughts of war and bloodlust through the tapping of long-forgotten memories from their history classes? Or through the very blood-soaked connotations of the number 212 itself? No, not really. I doubt that the U.S. Army is offering the training programs "Obtaining the Emperorship Through Fratricide" and "Sinking Ships Via the Application of Giant Claws." I'm pretty sure the German navy is doing that, though.