12 (number) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mathematical properties
φ(12) = 4	τ(12) Divisor function In mathematics, and specifically in number theory, a divisor function is an arithmetical function related to the divisors of an integer. When referred to as the divisor function, it counts the number of divisors of an integer. It appears in a number of remarkable identities, including relationships... = 6
σ(12) Divisor function In mathematics, and specifically in number theory, a divisor function is an arithmetical function related to the divisors of an integer. When referred to as the divisor function, it counts the number of divisors of an integer. It appears in a number of remarkable identities, including relationships... = 28	π(12) = 5
μ(12) Möbius function The classical Möbius function μ is an important multiplicative function in number theory and combinatorics. The German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius introduced it in 1832... = 0	M(12) = -2

12 (twelve ) is the natural number

Natural number

In mathematics, the natural numbers are the ordinary whole numbers used for counting and ordering . These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively...

following 11

11 (number)

11 is the natural number following 10 and preceding 12.Eleven is the first number which cannot be counted with a human's eight fingers and two thumbs additively. In English, it is the smallest positive integer requiring three syllables and the largest prime number with a single-morpheme name...

and preceding 13

13 (number)

13 is the natural number after 12 and before 14. It is the smallest number with eight letters in its name spelled out in English. It is also the first of the teens – the numbers 13 through 19 – the ages of teenagers....

.

The word "twelve" is the largest number with a single-morpheme

Morpheme

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...

name in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. Etymology suggests that "twelve" (similar to "eleven

11 (number)

") arises from the Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

twalif "two-leftover", so a literal translation would yield "two remaining [after having ten taken]". This compound meaning may have been transparent

Transparency (linguistic)

Linguistic transparency is a phrase which is used in multiple, overlapping subjects in the fields of linguistics and the philosophy of language...

to speakers of Old English

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

, but the modern form "twelve" is quite opaque. Only the remaining tw- hints that twelve and two are related.

A group of twelve things is called a duodecad. The ordinal adjective is duodenary, twelfth. The adjective referring to a group consisting of twelve things is duodecuple.

The number twelve is often used as a sales unit in trade, and is often referred to as a dozen
Dozen
A dozen is a grouping of approximately twelve. The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the moon or months in a cycle of the sun or year...

. Twelve dozen are known as a gross

Gross (unit)

A gross is equal to a dozen dozen, i.e. 12 × 12 = 144.It can be used in duodecimal counting. The use of gross likely originated from the fact that 144 can be counted on the fingers using the fingertips and first two joints of each finger when marked by the thumb of one hand. The other hand...

. (Note that there are thirteen items in a baker's dozen.)

As shown below, the number twelve is frequently cited in the Abrahamic religions

Abrahamic religions

Abrahamic religions are the monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him...

and is also central to Western calendar

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...

and units of time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

In mathematics

Twelve is a composite number

Composite number

A composite number is a positive integer which has a positive divisor other than one or itself. In other words a composite number is any positive integer greater than one that is not a prime number....

, the smallest number with exactly six divisor

Divisor

In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which divides n without leaving a remainder.-Explanation:...

s, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12

Year 12 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Capito...

. Twelve is also a highly composite number

Highly composite number

A highly composite number is a positive integer with more divisors than any positive integer smaller than itself.The initial or smallest twenty-one highly composite numbers are listed in the table at right....

, the next one being 24

24 (number)

24 is the natural number following 23 and preceding 25.The SI prefix for 1024 is yotta , and for 10−24 yocto...

. It is the first composite number

Composite number

of the form p²q; a square-prime, and also the first member of the (p²) family in this form. 12 has an aliquot sum of 16 (133% in abundance). Accordingly, 12 is the first abundant number (in fact a superabundant number) and demonstrates an 8 member aliquot sequence; {12,16,15,9,4,3,1,0} 12 is the 3rd composite number

Composite number

in the 3-aliquot tree. The only number which has 12 as its aliquot sum is the square

Square number

In mathematics, a square number, sometimes also called a perfect square, is an integer that is the square of an integer; in other words, it is the product of some integer with itself...

121. Only 2 other square primes are abundant (18 and 20).

Twelve is a sublime number

Sublime number

In number theory, a sublime number is a positive integer which has a perfect number of positive divisors , and whose positive divisors add up to another perfect number.The number 12, for example, is a sublime number...

, a number that has a perfect number

Perfect number

In number theory, a perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of its positive divisors excluding the number itself . Equivalently, a perfect number is a number that is half the sum of all of its positive divisors i.e...

of divisors, and the sum of its divisors is also a perfect number. Since there is a subset of 12's proper divisors that add up to 12 (all of them but with 4 excluded), 12 is a semiperfect number

Semiperfect number

In number theory, a semiperfect number or pseudoperfect number is a natural number n that is equal to the sum of all or some of its proper divisors. A semiperfect number that is equal to the sum of all its proper divisors is a perfect number....

.

If an odd perfect number

Perfect number

is of the form 12k + 1, it has at least twelve distinct prime factors.

Twelve is a superfactorial, being the product of the first three factorials. Twelve being the product of three and four, the first four positive integers show up in the equation 12 = 3 × 4, which can be continued with the equation 56 = 7 × 8.

Twelve is the ninth Perrin number

Perrin number

In mathematics, the Perrin numbers are defined by the recurrence relationandThe sequence of Perrin numbers starts withThe number of different maximal independent sets in an n-vertex cycle graph is counted by the nth Perrin number.-History:...

, preceded in the sequence by 5, 7, 10, and also appears in the Padovan sequence

Padovan sequence

The Padovan sequence is the sequence of integers P defined by the initial valuesP=P=P=1,and the recurrence relationP=P+P.The first few values of P are...

, preceded by the terms 5, 7, 9 (it is the sum of the first two of these). It is the fourth Pell number

Pell number

In mathematics, the Pell numbers are an infinite sequence of integers that have been known since ancient times, the denominators of the closest rational approximations to the square root of 2. This sequence of approximations begins 1/1, 3/2, 7/5, 17/12, and 41/29, so the sequence of Pell numbers...

, preceded in the sequence by 2 and 5 (it is the sum of the former plus twice the latter).

A twelve-sided polygon

Polygon

In geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...

is a dodecagon

Dodecagon

In geometry, a dodecagon is any polygon with twelve sides and twelve angles.- Regular dodecagon :It usually refers to a regular dodecagon, having all sides of equal length and all angles equal to 150°...

. A twelve-faced

Face (geometry)

In geometry, a face of a polyhedron is any of the polygons that make up its boundaries. For example, any of the squares that bound a cube is a face of the cube...

polyhedron

Polyhedron

In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...

is a dodecahedron. Regular cube

Cube

In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. The cube can also be called a regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is a special kind of square prism, of rectangular parallelepiped and...

s and octahedron

Octahedron

In geometry, an octahedron is a polyhedron with eight faces. A regular octahedron is a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex....

s both have 12 edges, while regular icosahedron

Icosahedron

In geometry, an icosahedron is a regular polyhedron with 20 identical equilateral triangular faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices. It is one of the five Platonic solids....

s have 12 vertices. Twelve is a pentagonal number

Pentagonal number

A pentagonal number is a figurate number that extends the concept of triangular and square numbers to the pentagon, but, unlike the first two, the patterns involved in the construction of pentagonal numbers are not rotationally symmetrical...

. The densest three-dimensional lattice

Lattice (group)

In mathematics, especially in geometry and group theory, a lattice in Rn is a discrete subgroup of Rn which spans the real vector space Rn. Every lattice in Rn can be generated from a basis for the vector space by forming all linear combinations with integer coefficients...

sphere packing

Sphere packing

In geometry, a sphere packing is an arrangement of non-overlapping spheres within a containing space. The spheres considered are usually all of identical size, and the space is usually three-dimensional Euclidean space...

has each sphere touching 12 others, and this is almost certainly true for any arrangement of spheres (the Kepler conjecture

Kepler conjecture

The Kepler conjecture, named after the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, is a mathematical conjecture about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space. It says that no arrangement of equally sized spheres filling space has a greater average density than that of the cubic...

). Twelve is also the kissing number in three dimensions.

Twelve is the smallest weight for which a cusp form

Cusp form

In number theory, a branch of mathematics, a cusp form is a particular kind of modular form, distinguished in the case of modular forms for the modular group by the vanishing in the Fourier series expansion \Sigma a_n q^n...

exists. This cusp form is the discriminant Δ(q) whose Fourier coefficients are given by the Ramanujan τ-function and which is (up to a constant multiplier) the 24th power of the Dedekind eta function

Dedekind eta function

The Dedekind eta function, named after Richard Dedekind, is a function defined on the upper half-plane of complex numbers, where the imaginary part is positive...

. This fact is related to a constellation of interesting appearances of the number twelve in mathematics ranging from the value of the Riemann zeta function function at -1 i.e. ζ(-1)=-1/12, the fact that the abelianization of SL(2,Z) has twelve elements, and even the properties of lattice polygons.

There are twelve Jacobian elliptic functions and twelve cubic distance-transitive graph

Distance-transitive graph

In the mathematical field of graph theory, a distance-transitive graph is a graph such that, given any two vertices v and w at any distance i, and any other two vertices x and y at the same distance, there is an automorphism of the graph that carries v to x and w to y.A distance transitive...

s.

The duodecimal

Duodecimal

The duodecimal system is a positional notation numeral system using twelve as its base. In this system, the number ten may be written as 'A', 'T' or 'X', and the number eleven as 'B' or 'E'...

system (12₁₀ [twelve] = 10₁₂), which is the use of 12 as a division factor for many ancient and medieval weights and measures, including hour

Hour

The hour is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds...

s, probably originates from Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

.

In base thirteen and higher bases (such as hexadecimal

Hexadecimal

In mathematics and computer science, hexadecimal is a positional numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16. It uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols 0–9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F to represent values ten to fifteen...

), twelve is represented as C. In base 10, the number 12 is a Harshad number

Harshad number

A Harshad number, or Niven number in a given number base, is an integer that is divisible by the sum of its digits when written in that base. Harshad numbers were defined by D. R. Kaprekar, a mathematician from India. The word "Harshad" comes from the Sanskrit + , meaning joy-giver. The Niven...

List of basic calculations

Multiplication Multiplication Multiplication is the mathematical operation of scaling one number by another. It is one of the four basic operations in elementary arithmetic ....	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	50	100	1000
	12	24 24 (number) 24 is the natural number following 23 and preceding 25.The SI prefix for 1024 is yotta , and for 10−24 yocto...	36 36 (number) 36 is the natural number following 35 and preceding 37.- In mathematics :36 is both the square of 6 and a triangular number, making it a square triangular number...	48 48 (number) 48 is the natural number following 47 and preceding 49. It is one third of a gross or four dozens.- In mathematics :Forty-eight is a double factorial of 6, a highly composite number. Like all other multiples of 6, it is a semiperfect number. 48 is the second 17-gonal number.48 is in abundance...	60 60 (number) 60 is the natural number following 59 and preceding 61. Being three times twenty, 60 is called "three score" in some older literature.-In mathematics:...	72 72 (number) 72 is the natural number following 71 and preceding 73. It is half a gross or 6 dozen .-In mathematics:...	84 84 (number) 84 is the natural number following 83 and preceding 85.- In mathematics :Eighty-four is the sum of the first seven triangular numbers , as well as the sum of a twin prime...	96 96 (number) 96 is the natural number following 95 and preceding 97.-In mathematics:Ninety-six is an octagonal number, a refactorable number and an untouchable number. Since it is a multiple of 6, it is a semiperfect number...	108 108 (number) 108 is the natural number following 107 and preceding 109.- In mathematics :One hundred [and] eight is an abundant number and a semiperfect number...	120 120 (number) 120 is the natural number following 119 and preceding 121. 120 was known as "the great hundred", especially prior to the year 1700, from the Teutonic Hundert which equalled 120. The number 100, now known commonly as "one hundred" was then known as "the small hundred". It is also known as...		132 132 (number) 132 is the natural number following 131 and preceding 133.-In mathematics:132 is the sixth Catalan number. It is a pronic number, the product of 11 and 12. As it has 12 divisors total, 132 is a refactorable number....	144 144 (number) 144 is the natural number following 143 and preceding 145. 144 is a dozen dozens, or one gross.-In mathematics:It is the twelfth Fibonacci number, and the largest one to also be a square, as the square of 12 , following 89 and preceding 233.144 is the smallest number with exactly 15 divisors.144 is...	156 156 (number) 156 is the number equal to 100 + 50 + 6, following 155 and followed by 157.-In mathematics:It is a pronic number, a dodecagonal number, a refactorable number and a Harshad number.156 is a repdigit in base 5 .-In the military:...	168 168 (number) 168 is the natural number following 167 and preceding 169.-In mathematics:* 168 is an even number* 168 is an abundant number, as 312 is greater than 168* 168 is a composite number* There are 168 primes less than 1000...	180 180 (number) 180 is the natural number following 179 and preceding 181.-In mathematics:180 is an abundant number, with its proper divisors summing up to 366. 180 is also a highly composite number, a positive integer with more divisors than any smaller positive integer...	192 192 (number) 192 is the natural number following 191 and preceding 193.-In mathematics:* 192 is an even number* 192 is the sum of ten consecutive primes...	204 204 (number) 204 is the natural number following 203 and preceding 205. It may be written as "two hundred four" or "two hundred and four".-In mathematics:...	216 216 (number) 216 is the natural number following 215 and preceding 217.Since 216 = 3^3 + 4^3 + 5^3 = 6^3, it is the smallest cube that's also the sum of three cubes . It is also the sum of a twin prime...	228	240 240 (number) 240 is the natural number following 239 and preceding 241.-In mathematics:With 20 divisors total , more than any previous number, 240 is a highly composite number, and it is also a refactorable number or tau number, since it has 20 divisors and 20 divides 240...		252	264	276 276 (number) Two hundred seventy-six is the natural number following two hundred seventy-five and preceding two hundred seventy-seven.-Mathematical properties:276 = 15 + 25 + 35...	288	300 300 (number) 300 is the natural number following 299 and preceding 301.- Mathematical properties :It is a triangular number and the sum of a pair of twin primes , as well as the sum of ten consecutive primes...		600 600 (number) For the year 600, see 600 BC or 600 AD.600 is the natural number following 599 and preceding 601.-Mathematical properties:Six hundred is a composite number, an abundant number, a pronic number and a Harshad number.-In other fields:...	1200	12000

Exponentiation Exponentiation Exponentiation is a mathematical operation, written as an, involving two numbers, the base a and the exponent n...	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
	12	144	1728	20736	248832	2985984	35831808	429981696	5159780352	61917364224		743008370688	8916100448256	106993205379072
	1	4096	531441	16777216	244140625	2176782336	13841287201	68719476736	282429536481	1000000000000		3138428376721	8916100448256	23298085122481

In numeral systems

Arabic Arabic numerals Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...		Armenian Armenian numerals The system of Armenian numerals is a historic numeral system created using the majuscules of the Armenian alphabet.There was no notation for zero in the old system, and the numeric values for individual letters were added together. The principles behind this system are the same as for the Ancient...
Ionian Ionic Greek Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century... Greek Greek numerals Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...		Attic Attic numerals Attic numerals were used by the ancient Greeks, possibly from the 7th century BC. They were also known as Herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd century manuscript by Herodian... Greek Greek numerals Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
Hebrew	V20-Z1-Z1	Egyptian Egyptian numerals The system of Ancient Egyptian numerals was used in Ancient Egypt until the early first millennium AD. It was a decimal system, often rounded off to the higher power, written in hieroglyphs. The hieratic form of numerals stressed an exact finite series notation, ciphered one to one onto the...
Indian Indian numerals Most of the positional base 10 numeral systems in the world have originated from India, where the concept of positional numeration was first developed... (Devanāgarī Devanagari Devanagari \|deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal... )		Chinese Chinese numerals Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. Today speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems:the ubiquitous Arabic numerals and two indigenous systems.... and Japanese Japanese numerals The system of Japanese numerals is the system of number names used in the Japanese language. The Japanese numerals in writing are entirely based on the Chinese numerals and the grouping of large numbers follow the Chinese tradition of grouping by 10,000...
Tamil Tamil script The Tamil script is a script that is used to write the Tamil language as well as other minority languages such as Badaga, Irulas, and Paniya...		Roman Roman numerals The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:... and Etruscan Etruscan numerals The Etruscan numerals were used by the ancient Etruscans. The system was adapted from the Greek Attic numerals and formed the inspiration for the later Roman numerals.There is very little surviving evidence of these numerals...
Thai Thai numerals Thai numerals constitute a numeral system of Thai number names for the Khmer numerals traditionally used in Thailand, also used for the more common Arabic numerals, and which follow the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.-Usage:...		Chuvash Chuvash language Chuvash is a Turkic language spoken in central Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages....
Malayalam Thai numerals Thai numerals constitute a numeral system of Thai number names for the Khmer numerals traditionally used in Thailand, also used for the more common Arabic numerals, and which follow the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.-Usage:...

In science

The atomic number
Atomic number
In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...

of magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...

in the periodic table
Periodic table
The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...

.
The average human has twelve cranial nerves
Cranial nerves
Cranial nerves are nerves that emerge directly from the brain, in contrast to spinal nerves, which emerge from segments of the spinal cord. In humans, there are traditionally twelve pairs of cranial nerves...

.
The duodenum
Duodenum
The duodenum is the first section of the small intestine in most higher vertebrates, including mammals, reptiles, and birds. In fish, the divisions of the small intestine are not as clear and the terms anterior intestine or proximal intestine may be used instead of duodenum...

(from Latin duodecim, "twelve") is the first part of the small intestine
Small intestine
The small intestine is the part of the gastrointestinal tract following the stomach and followed by the large intestine, and is where much of the digestion and absorption of food takes place. In invertebrates such as worms, the terms "gastrointestinal tract" and "large intestine" are often used to...

, that is about twelve inches long. More precisely, this section of the intestine was measured not in inches but in finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....

widths. In fact, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

the name of the duodenum is Zwölffingerdarm and in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

the name is twaalfvingerige darm, both meaning "twelve-finger bowel."
Force 12 on the Beaufort wind force scale
Beaufort scale
The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.-History:...

corresponds to the maximum wind speed of a hurricane.

Astronomy

Messier object
Messier object
The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. The original motivation of the catalogue was that Messier was a comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets...

M12
Messier 12
Messier 12 or M 12 is a globular cluster in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It was discovered by Charles Messier on May 30, 1764....

, a magnitude 8.0 globular cluster
Globular cluster
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is...

in the constellation Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus is a large constellation located around the celestial equator. Its name is from the Greek "serpent-bearer", and it is commonly represented as a man grasping the snake that is represented by the constellation Serpens. Ophiuchus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century...
The New General Catalogue
New General Catalogue
The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars is a well-known catalogue of deep sky objects in astronomy. It contains 7,840 objects, known as the NGC objects...

object NGC 12, a magnitude 13.1 spiral galaxy
Spiral galaxy
A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...

in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

Pisces
Pisces (constellation)
Pisces is a constellation of the zodiac. Its name is the Latin plural for fish, and its symbol is . It lies between Aquarius to the west and Aries to the east...
The Saros number of the solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...

series which began on 2680 BC BC August and ended on 1129 BC BC February. The duration of Saros series 12 was 1550.5 years, and it contained 87 solar eclipses.
The Saros number of the lunar eclipse
Lunar eclipse
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes behind the Earth so that the Earth blocks the Sun's rays from striking the Moon. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, a lunar eclipse can only occur the night of a...

series which began on 2360 BC BC May and ended on 1062 BC BC July. The duration of Saros series 12 was 1298.1 years, and it contained 73 lunar eclipses.
The 12th moon of Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

is Lysithea
Lysithea (moon)
Lysithea is a prograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by Seth Barnes Nicholson in 1938 at Mount Wilson Observatory and is named after the mythological Lysithea, daughter of Oceanus and one of Zeus' lovers....

.

In religion

There are twelve ' Jyotirlingas' (epitome of God Shiva) in Hindu Shaivism. The shaivites (orthodox devotees of God Shiva) treat them with great respect and these are visited by almost every pious Hindu at least once in a lifetime.
The number 12 is very important in many religions, mainly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and also found in some older religions and belief systems.

In Antiquity there are numerous magical/religious uses of twelves. Ancient Greek religion, the Twelve Olympians

Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal deities of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hades were siblings. Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis were children of Zeus...

were the principal gods of the pantheon

Pantheon (gods)

A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

. The chief Norse

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

god, Odin

Odin

Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....

, had 12 sons. Several sets of twelve cities are identified in history as a dodecapolis, the most familiar being the Etruscan League. In the King Arthur Legend, Arthur is said to have subdued 12 rebel princes and to have won 12 great battles against Saxon invaders. [source: Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, 3d ed]

The importance of 12 in Judaism and Christianity can be found in the Bible. The biblical Jacob

Jacob

Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...

had 12 sons, who were the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel

Israelite

According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...

, while the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

describes twelve apostles of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

; when Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...

was disgraced, a meeting was held (Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...

) to add Matthias

Matthias

Matthias is a name derived from the Greek Ματθιας, in origin similar to Matthew.See also: -People with the given name Matthias:Notable people named Matthias include the following:In nobility:* Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, King of Hungary...

to complete the number twelve once more. (Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is one of the governing bodies in the church hierarchy...

.)

The Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

contains much numerical symbolism, and a lot of the numbers mentioned have 12 as a divisor. mentions a woman — interpreted as the people of Israel, the Church

Christian Church

The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...

or the Virgin Mary — wearing a crown of twelve stars (representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel). Furthermore, there are 12,000 people sealed from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, making a total of 144,000

144000 (number)

144000 is a natural number. It has significance in several religious movements. In the Mayan calendar, a baktun is a period of 144,000 days.-Christianity:...

(which is the square of 12 multiplied by a thousand).

In Orthodox Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, 12 signifies the age a girl matures (bat mitzvah)

There are 12 days of Christmas. The song Twelve Days of Christmas
Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas are the festive days beginning Christmas Day . This period is also known as Christmastide and Twelvetide. The Twelfth Night of Christmas is always on the evening of 5 January, but the Twelfth Day can either precede or follow the Twelfth Night according to which...

came from the traditional practice of extending Yuletide celebrations over the twelve days from Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

day to the eve of Epiphany; the period of thirteen days including Epiphany is sometimes known as Christmastide. Thus Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night (holiday)
Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas.It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the...

is another name for the twelfth day of Christmas or January 5 (the eve of Epiphany). Similarly, Eastern Orthodoxy observes 12 Great Feasts.

In Shi'a Islam

Shi'a Islam

Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'ites or Shias. "Shia" is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī , meaning "followers of Ali", "faction of Ali", or "party of Ali".Like other schools of thought in Islam, Shia Islam is...

, there are twelve Imams, legitimate successors of the prophet Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

. These twelve early leaders of Islam are—Ali, Hasan

Hasan ibn Ali

Al-Hasan ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib ‎ is an important figure in Islam, the son of Fatimah the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and of the fourth Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib. Hasan is a member of the Ahl al-Bayt and Ahl al-Kisa...

, Husayn

Husayn ibn Ali

Hussein ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib ‎ was the son of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Fātimah Zahrā...

, and nine of Husayn's descendants.

Imāmah (Arabic: إمامة‎) is the Shī‘ah doctrine of religious, spiritual and political leadership of the Ummah. The Shī‘ah believe that the A'immah ("Imams") are the true Caliphs or rightful successors of Muḥammad, and Twelver and Ismā‘īlī Shī‘ah further that Imams are possessed of supernatural knowledge, authority, and infallibility (‘Iṣmah) as well as being part of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of Muhammad.[1] Both beliefs distinguish the Shī‘ah from Sunnis.

In Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, the sun god Surya

Surya

Surya Suraya or Phra Athit is the chief solar deity in Hinduism, one of the Adityas, son of Kasyapa and one of his wives, Aditi; of Indra; or of Dyaus Pitar . The term Surya also refers to the Sun, in general. Surya has hair and arms of gold...

has 12 names. Also, there are 12 Petals in Anahata

Anahata

Anahata is the fourth primary chakra according to the Hindu Yogic and Tantric traditions.In Sanskrit the word anahata - means unhurt, un-struck and unbeaten...

(Heart Chakra.)

In time

Most calendar systems
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

have twelve month
Month
A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months are synodic months and last approximately...

s in a year
Year
A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving around the Sun. For an observer on Earth, this corresponds to the period it takes the Sun to complete one course throughout the zodiac along the ecliptic....

.
The Western zodiac
Zodiac
In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...

has twelve signs, as does the Chinese zodiac
Chinese astrology
Chinese astrology is based on the traditional astronomy and calendars. The development of Chinese astrology is tied to that of astronomy, which came to flourish during the Han Dynasty ....

.
The Chinese use a 12 years cycle for time-reckoning called Earthly Branches
Earthly Branches
The Earthly Branches provide one Chinese system for reckoning time.This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of Suìxīng . Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years...

.
There are twenty-four hour
Hour
The hour is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds...

s in a day in all, with twelve hours for a half a day. The hours are numbered from one to twelve for both the ante meridiem (a.m.) half of the day and the post meridiem (p.m.) half of the day. 12:00 after a.m. and before p.m. (in the middle of the day) is midday or noon
Noon
Noon is usually defined as 12 o'clock in the daytime. The word noon is also used informally to mean midday regarding the location of the sun not the middle of a persons day. Although this is a time around the middle of the day when people in many countries take a lunch break...

, and 12:00 after p.m. and before a.m. (in the middle of the night) is midnight
Midnight
Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In the Roman time system, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons....

. A new day is considered to start with the stroke of midnight. Furthermore, the basic units of time (60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours) can all perfectly divide by twelve.

In sports

In rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

one of the centres, most often but not always the inside centre, wears the 12 shirt, while in rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

, one of the second-row forwards wears the number 12 jersey.

Also in rugby union, the number 12 appears in the current sponsored name of the Celtic League

Celtic League (rugby union)

The Celtic League is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....

, RaboDirect Pro12.

In both soccer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

and American Football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, the number 12 can be a symbolic reference to the fans because of the support they give to the 11 players on the field. Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...

reserves the number 12 jersey

Jersey (clothing)

A jersey is an item of knitted clothing, traditionally in wool or cotton, with sleeves, worn as a pullover, as it does not open at the front, unlike a cardigan. It is usually close-fitting and machine knitted in contrast to a guernsey that is more often hand knit with a thicker yarn...

for a walk-on player who represents the original "12th Man"

12th Man (football)

The 12th man or 12th player is a term used to describe the fans within a stadium during association football or American football games. This term has a different meaning in cricket, referring to the first substitute player who fields when a member of the fielding side is injured...

, a fan who was asked to play when the team's reserves were low in a college American football

American football

game in 1922. Similarly, Bayern Munich, Hammarby

Hammarby IF

Hammarby Fotboll is a Swedish football club based in Johanneshov - just south of Södermalm, the southernmost district of Stockholm city centre...

, Feyenoord, Atlético Mineiro

Clube Atlético Mineiro

Clube Atlético Mineiro , are a Brazilian football club based in Belo Horizonte, the oldest in the city. Founded in 1908, they play in the Campeonato Mineiro and Campeonato Brasileiro Série A or Brasileirão. Atlético Mineiro have been Brazilian champions once, state winners a record 40 times and...

, Flamengo, Seattle Seahawks

Seattle Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team...

, Portsmouth

Portsmouth F.C.

Portsmouth Football Club is an English football club based in the city of Portsmouth. The club is nicknamed Pompey. Portsmouth's home matches have been played at Fratton Park since the club's formation in 1898. The team currently play in the Football League Championship after being relegated from...

and Cork City do not allow field players to wear the number 12 on their jersey

Jersey (clothing)

because it is reserved for their supporters.

The jersey number 12 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats (or, in one case, a team's fans):

In Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

:
- The Tampa Bay Rays
  Tampa Bay Rays
  The Tampa Bay Rays are a Major League Baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays are a member of the Eastern Division of MLB's American League. Since their inception in , the club has played at Tropicana Field...
  
  , for Hall of Famer
  National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
  The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests serving as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, the display of...
  
  Wade Boggs
  Wade Boggs
  Wade Anthony Boggs is an American former professional baseball third baseman. He spent his 18-year baseball career primarily with the Boston Red Sox, but also played for the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays...
  
  .
- The Toronto Blue Jays
  Toronto Blue Jays
  The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball 's American League ....
  
  , for Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar
  Roberto Alomar
  Roberto "Robbie" Alomar Velázquez is a former Major League Baseball player , regarded by many as one of the best second basemen in MLB history. During his career he won more Gold Gloves than any other second baseman in history, and also won the second-most Silver Slugger Awards for a second...
  
  .
In the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

:
- The Buffalo Bills
  Buffalo Bills
  The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
  
  , for Hall of Famer
  Pro Football Hall of Fame
  The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...
  
  Jim Kelly
  Jim Kelly
  James Edward Kelly is a former American football quarterback in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and the USFL's Houston Gamblers....
  
  .
- The Miami Dolphins
  Miami Dolphins
  The Miami Dolphins are a Professional football team based in the Miami metropolitan area in Florida. The team is part of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
  
  , for Hall of Famer Bob Griese
  Bob Griese
  Robert Allen "Bob" Griese is a former American collegiate and Professional Football quarterback who earned All-American honors with the Purdue Boilermakers before being drafted in 1967 by the American Football League's Miami Dolphins...
  
  .
- The New York Jets
  New York Jets
  The New York Jets are a professional football team headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, representing the New York metropolitan area. The team is a member of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
  
  , for Hall of Famer Joe Namath
  Joe Namath
  Joseph William "Joe" Namath , nicknamed "Broadway Joe" or "Joe Willie", is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for the University of Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, from 1962–1964, and professional football in the...
  
  .
- The San Francisco 49ers
  San Francisco 49ers
  The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
  
  , for John Brodie
  John Brodie
  John Riley Brodie is a former professional American football quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and had a second career as a Senior PGA Tour professional golfer.-Early years and education:...
  
  .
- The Seattle Seahawks
  Seattle Seahawks
  The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team...
  
  , for their fans (the "12th Man").
- The Dallas Cowboys
  Dallas Cowboys
  The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
  
  have a policy of not retiring numbers. However, the team has not issued #12 since the retirement of Hall of Famer Roger Staubach
  Roger Staubach
  Roger Thomas Staubach is a businessman, Heisman Trophy winner and legendary Hall of Fame former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys from 1969 until 1979. Staubach was instrumental in developing the Cowboys into becoming one of the best teams of the 1970s and led the team to nine of the Cowboys'...
  
  .
- The Pittsburgh Steelers
  Pittsburgh Steelers
  The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
  
  currently have a policy of not retiring numbers, having retired only one number (70) in their earlier history. However, the Steelers have not issued #12 since the retirement of Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw
  Terry Bradshaw
  Terry Paxton Bradshaw is a former American football quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League . He played 14 seasons. He is a football analyst and co-host of Fox NFL Sunday...
  
  .
In the NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

:
- The Cincinnati Royals, for Hall of Famer Maurice Stokes
  Maurice Stokes
  Maurice Stokes was an American professional basketball player in the 1950s, whose career was cut short by a debilitating injury...
  
  , who suffered a career-ending head injury in 1958, the team's first season in Cincinnati. The franchise continues to honor the number in its current incarnation as the Sacramento Kings
  Sacramento Kings
  The Sacramento Kings are a professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California, United States. They are currently members of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association...
  
  .
- The New York Knicks
  New York Knicks
  The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
  
  , for Dick Barnett.
- The Utah Jazz
  Utah Jazz
  The Utah Jazz is a professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. They are currently a part of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
  
  , for Hall of Famer John Stockton
  John Stockton
  John Houston Stockton is a retired American professional basketball player who spent his entire career as a point guard for the Utah Jazz of the NBA from 1984 to 2003. Stockton is regarded as one of the best point guards of all time, holding the NBA records for most career assists and steals by...
  
  .
In the NHL
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

:
- The Detroit Red Wings
  Detroit Red Wings
  The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League , and are one of the Original Six teams of the NHL, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, New York...
  
  , for Hall of Famer
  Hockey Hall of Fame
  The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is both a museum and a hall of fame. It holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup...
  
  Sid Abel
  Sid Abel
  Sidney Gerald Abel was a Canadian professional hockey player and later coach in the National Hockey League...
  
  .
- The Montreal Canadiens
  Montreal Canadiens
  The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...
  
  , for Hall of Famers Yvan Cournoyer
  Yvan Cournoyer
  Yvan Serge "The Roadrunner" Cournoyer is a retired Canadian hockey right winger who played in the National Hockey League for the Montreal Canadiens from 1963 to 1979. Cournoyer was born in Drummondville, Quebec. He was nicknamed "The Roadrunner" due to his small size and blazing speed, which he...
  
  and Dickie Moore.
- The Vancouver Canucks
  Vancouver Canucks
  The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, :British Columbia, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place,...
  
  , for Stan Smyl
  Stan Smyl
  Stanley Philip Smyl is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey winger. As a junior, he appeared in three consecutive Memorial Cups with the New Westminster Bruins, winning the championship twice in 1977 and 1978...
  
  .
The jersey number 12 has also been retired
Honored North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball players
Forty-three former North Carolina men's basketball players are honored in the Dean E. Smith Center with banners representing their numbers hung from the rafters...

by the men's basketball program
North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball program is the intercollegiate men's basketball of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is considered one of the most successful programs in NCAA history...

of the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

for Phil Ford.

In Canadian football

Canadian football

Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...

, 12 is the maximum number of players that can be on the field of play for each team at any time.

In ten-pin bowling

Ten-pin bowling

Ten-pin bowling is a competitive sport in which a player rolls a bowling ball down a wooden or synthetic lane with the objective of scoring points by knocking down as many pins as possible.-Summary:The lane is bordered along its length by semicylindrical channels Ten-pin bowling (commonly just...

, 12 is the number of strikes needed for a perfect game.

In curling

Curling

Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...

, the House or the circular scoring area, is 12 feet in diameter.

In cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, another sport with eleven players per team, teams may select a "12th man", who may replace an injured player for the purpose of fielding (but not batting, bowling or keeping wicket).

In association football, 12 was also the number of teams in the finals of the FIFA Women's World Cup

FIFA Women's World Cup

The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the...

in its first two editions in 1991 and 1995.

In technology

ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

and Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

code point for form feed.
The number of function key
Function key
A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard which can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions...

s on most PC keyboards (F1 through F12)
The number of keys in any standard digital telephone (1 through 9, 0, * and #)
Microsoft's Rich Text Format
Rich Text Format
The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....

specification assigns numbers congruent to 12 mod 256 to variants of the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

Film

Movies with the number twelve or its variations in their titles include

12
12 (film)
12 is a 2007 crime film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film was presented at the Venice Film Festival, where Mikhalkov was awarded the Special Lion for Overall Work...
12 Angry Men (1957 and 1997
12 Angry Men (1997 film)
12 Angry Men is a 1997 television film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the Reginald Rose teleplay of the same title.-Plot:After the final closing arguments have been presented to the judge, she gives her instructions to the jury. In the United States , the verdict in criminal cases must...

)
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen (1950 film)
Cheaper by the Dozen is a 1950 film based upon the 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film and book describe growing up in a family with twelve children in Montclair, New Jersey. It was made in Technicolor with Leon Shamroy as cinematographer...

Ocean's Twelve
Ocean's Twelve
Ocean's Twelve is a 2004 American crime comedy film, the sequel to 2001's Ocean's Eleven. Like its predecessor, which was a remake of the 1960 film Ocean's 11, the film used a celebrity ensemble cast. It was released in the United States on December 10, 2004. A third film, Ocean's Thirteen, was...
12 Monkeys

The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 film directed by Robert Aldrich and released by MGM. It was filmed in England and features an ensemble cast, including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, and Robert Webber. The film is based on E. M...
12 Rounds
12 Rounds
12 Rounds is a British rock band formed by Atticus Ross and singer Claudia Sarne, who are married. After the release of their first album, Jitter Juice, they toured with the Sneaker Pimps. 12 Rounds played the Reading Festival in 1996...

Twelve
Twelve (film)
Twelve is a 2010 crime film directed by Joel Schumacher. The film was written by Jordan Melamed, adapted from the novel of the same name by Nick McDonell. The film tells a story of drug addiction, violence, and sex among wealthy teenagers from Manhattan's Upper East Side...

Television

The number twelve plays a significant role in the television franchise Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games...

. The characters come from the Twelve Colonies
Twelve Colonies
The Twelve Colonies of Man are fictional locations that constitute the principal human civilization in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, the "reimagined" series of the same name in 2004, and in the prequel series, Caprica...

of Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...

and worship the twelve lords of Kobol. In the re-imagined series, there are also twelve models of the humanoid version of Cylons
Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)
The Cylons are a cybernetic civilization at war with the Twelve Colonies of humanity in the Battlestar Galactica science fiction franchise, in the original 1978 and 1980 series, the 2004 reimagining, as well as the spin-off prequel series, Caprica...

.
Twelve Angry Men, the original 1954 live performance on the anthology television series Studio One
"Number 12 Looks Just Like You
Number 12 Looks Just Like You
"Number 12 Looks Just Like You" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:In a future society, all young adults go through a process known as "the Transformation," in which each person's body and face are changed to mimic a physically attractive design...

" is an episode of the television show "The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...

".
Schoolhouse Rock! portrayed an alien child using base-twelve arithmetic in the short "Little Twelvetoes".
12 Oz Mouse was an animated television show on Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...

.

Theatre

Twelfth Night is a comedy by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose
Reginald Rose
Reginald Rose was an American film and television writer most widely known for his work in the early years of television drama. Rose's work is marked by its treatment of controversial social and political issues...

, adapted from his own teleplay (see above)

Literature

The Twelve
The Twelve
The Twelve is a controversial long poem by Aleksandr Blok. Written early in 1918, the poem was one of the first poetic responses to the October Revolution of 1917.-Background:...

is a poem by Aleksandr Blok
Twelve
Twelve (novel)
Twelve is a 2002 novel by Nick McDonell about drug addiction, violence and sex among mainly wealthy Manhattan teenagers. The title refers to a new designer drug which the protagonist of the novel, White Mike, sells...

is a novel by Nick McDonell
Nick McDonell
Robert Nicholas "Nick" McDonell is an American writer.-Personal life:McDonell was born in Manhattan, New York. His mother, Joan, is a writer, and his father, Terry McDonell, is managing editor of Sports Illustrated. His brother is actor Thomas McDonell. His father was once managing editor of...
The Twelve Chairs
The Twelve Chairs
The Twelve Chairs is a classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1928. Its main character Ostap Bender reappears in the book's sequel The Little Golden Calf.-Plot:...

is a satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov
Ilf and Petrov
Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg and Evgeny or Yevgeni Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Kataev or Katayev were two Soviet prose authors of the 1920s and 1930s...
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen is a biographical book written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey that tells the story of time and motion study and efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth, and their twelve children. The book focuses on the many years the...

is a 1946 novel by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Ernestine Moller Gilbreth Carey was an American author.-Biography:Born in New York City, she was the daughter of Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth, early 20th-century pioneers of time and motion study and what would now be called organizational behavior...
The Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

, an epic poem by Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

is divided into two halves composed of twelve books.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

, an epic poem by John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

is divided into twelve books perhaps in imitation of the Aeneid

Music

Twelve Girls Band
Twelve Girls Band
Twelve Girls Band are an all female Chinese musical group that initially consisted of twelve members before the addition of a thirteenth. Twelve Girls Band use traditional Chinese instruments to play both traditional Chinese and Western music. Formed on June 18, 2001, the women were selected by...
Twelve is the number of pitch class
Pitch class
In music, a pitch class is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart, e.g., the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves...

es in an octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

, not counting the duplicated (octave) pitch. Also, the total number of major keys, (not counting enharmonic
Enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note , interval , or key signature which is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature, but "spelled", or named, differently...

equivalents) and the total number of minor keys (also not counting equivalents). This applies only to twelve tone equal temperament
Equal temperament
An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. As pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency, this means that the perceived "distance" from every note to its nearest neighbor is the same for...

, the most common tuning used today in western influenced music.
The twelfth is the interval
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

of an octave and a fifth. Instruments such as the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

which behave as a stopped cylindrical pipe overblow
Overblowing
Overblowing A technique used while playing a wind instrument which, primarily through manipulation of the supplied air , causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one...

at the twelfth.
The twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

(also dodecaphony) is a method of musical composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

devised by Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

. Music using the technique is called twelve-tone music.
The 12" single
12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...

is a vinyl record format.
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night (band)
Twelfth Night are an English neo-progressive rock band of the 1980s, reformed in 2007.-Formation:The seeds of Twelfth Night were sown when guitarist Andy Revell and drummer Brian Devoil joined forces on 23 February 1978 to win a talent competition at Reading University. The road crew included Geoff...

is a progressive rock band
12 Play
12 Play
-Personnel:* All songs were written and arranged by R. Kelly* Executive Producer: Barry HankersonCo-ProducerTimmy Allen-External links:* at Discogs* at 12Play.net...

is an R. Kelly
R. Kelly
Robert Sylvester Kelly , better known by his stage name R. Kelly, is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. A native of Chicago, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s and debuted in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. In 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play...

album.
The Number 12 Looks Like You is a mathcore
Mathcore
Mathcore is a rhythmically complex and dissonant fusion style of hardcore punk and Metal. It has its roots in bands such as Converge, Botch, and The Dillinger Escape Plan. The term mathcore is suggested by analogy with math rock. Both math rock and mathcore make use of unusual time signatures...

band.
"12", a Song from Brave Murder Day
Brave Murder Day
- Notes :# "Murder" & "Rainroom" is featured on Brave Yester Days.# "12" is a re-recorded version of the song Black Erotica from the W.A.R. Compilation Volume 1...

by Katatonia.
12
12 (Herbert Grönemeyer album)
"12" is the 12th full-length album by German singer Herbert Grönemeyer, released in March 2007. It was recorded between 2006 and 2007 in London and was produced by Alex Silva and Herbert Grönemeyer....

is a studio album by German singer Herbert Grönemeyer.
Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some
Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some
Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some is musician Cyndi Lauper's greatest hits CD, released in 1994. The album sold over 6 million copies worldwide.-Album information:In the United States the album has 14 tracks...

is an album by Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...

.
D12
D12
D12, an acronym for The Dirty Dozen, is an American hip hop group from Detroit, Michigan. D12 has had chart-topping albums in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia...

a rap group also known as the Dirty Dozen.
Musical group named 12 Stones
12 Stones
12 Stones is a rock band that was formed in 2000 in Mandeville, Louisiana. They have collectively sold more than 2 million records.-History:The four band members met in Mandeville, Louisiana, a small suburb north of New Orleans, and within 15 months were signed to a record deal with Wind-up Records...
12 Hundred is a song by band Mushroomhead
Mushroomhead
Mushroomhead is an American industrial metal band from Cleveland, Ohio. Formed in 1993 in Cleveland Warehouse District, the band's music can be described as a synthesis of alternative music, heavy metal, and electro-industrial...

of their Savior Sorrow
Savior Sorrow
Savior Sorrow is the sixth studio album release and the follow-up to 2003's XIII by the Cleveland, Ohio based industrial metal band Mushroomhead. It is their first release through Megaforce Records...

album.
12
12 (Keller Williams album)
12 is the twelfth album by Keller Williams, released in 2007. It features one song from each of his previous 11 albums, as well as one previously un-recorded song .-Track listing:# Turn in Difference 3:24# Anyhow Anyway 5:24# Tribe 4:48...

is the 12th studio album by Keller Williams
Keller Williams
Keller Williams is an American musician from Fredericksburg, Virginia, who began performing in the early 1990s. He is also known by the names K-Dub or just Keller, when performing. Williams' music combines elements of bluegrass, folk, alternative rock, reggae, electronica/dance, jazz, funk, and...

.
"12" ("Dodeka" in Greek) is one of the most well-known hits by Anna Vissi
Anna Vissi
Anna Vissi , known as Anna Vishy in Cypriot Greek, is a Greek-Cypriot recording artist and actress...
12 is the number of studio albums the band The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

released.
The 1812 overture
1812 Overture
The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture or the Overture of 1812 is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of...
"Twelve drummers drumming" is the gift on the twelfth day of Christmas in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)
"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Although first published in England in 1780, textual evidence may indicate the song is French in origin...

"

Art Theory

There are twelve basic hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...

s in the color wheel
Color wheel
A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle that shows relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors, etc....

; 3 primary colors (red, yellow, blue), 3 secondary colors (orange, green & purple) and 6 tertiary colors (names for these vary, but are intermediates between the primaries and secondaries).

Games

Twelve is a character in the Street Fighter video game

The Roman form of 12 (XII) is used as the symbol of the organization MJ12 in the Deus Ex
Deus Ex
Deus Ex is an action role-playing game developed by Ion Storm Inc. and published by Eidos Interactive in 2000, which combines gameplay elements of first-person shooters with those of role-playing video games...

computer game.

In other fields

There are 12 ounces in a troy pound
Troy weight
Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals, gemstones, and black powder.There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, rather than the 16 ounces per pound found in the more common avoirdupois system. The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce,...

(used for precious metals)
There are 12 constellations in the ecliptic (or signs of the zodiac).
In the former British currency system
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...

, there were twelve pence in a shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

.
In Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, the number of labours of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

was increased from ten to make twelve.
In English, twelve is the number of greatest magnitude that has just one syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...

.
There are normally twelve pairs of rib
Rib
In vertebrate anatomy, ribs are the long curved bones which form the rib cage. In most vertebrates, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the chest cavity. They serve to protect the lungs, heart, and other internal organs of the thorax...

s in the human body.
The Twelve Tables
Twelve Tables
The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centrepiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum...

or Lex Duodecim Tabularum, more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae was the ancient legislation
Legislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

underlying Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

.
In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, twelve people are appointed to sit on a jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...

for felony trials in all but four states, and in federal and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

courts. The number of jurors gave the title to the play (and subsequent films) Twelve Angry Men.
Twelve people have walked on Earth's moon.
The United States of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

is divided into twelve Federal Reserve Districts (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco); American paper currency has serial numbers beginning with one of twelve different letters, A through L, representing the Federal Reserve Bank from which the currency originated.
According to UFO conspiracy theory
UFO conspiracy theory
A UFO conspiracy theory is any one of many often overlapping conspiracy theories which argue that evidence of the reality of unidentified flying objects is being suppressed by various governments around the world...

, Majestic 12
Majestic 12
Majestic 12 is the alleged code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman...

is a secret committee, allegedly set up by U.S. President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

to investigate the Roswell UFO incident
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...

and cover up future extraterrestrial contact.
12 is the number of the French department Aveyron
Aveyron
Aveyron is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.- History :Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790....

.
King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

's round table
Round table
A round table is a table which has no "head" and no "sides", and therefore no one person sitting at it is given a privileged position and all are treated as equals. The idea stems from the Arthurian legend about the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot....

had 12 knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

s plus King Arthur himself.
12 inches in a foot.
12 face cards in a card deck.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...

has 12 steps, 12 traditions and 12 concepts for world service

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