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I could have studied the Crimea for GCSEs in 1994 (didn't as it happened, but the option was there). It came into the survey history of medicine I did do. So I'd agree broadly with Edmund that it's still being covered in schools (again, whether that means it's "out there" is something else), though I also agree with Geraldine that the sort of joshing, 1066-and-all-that banter which presumed familiarity with these events has largely gone from our generation. That's because we weren't taught history Whig-fashion, though, which is A Good Thing, no? As to coinage, I'm fairly fluent in l-s-d. Shillings survived into my teenagerhood as 5p pieces, florins as 10p. I know what guineas, half-crowns and tanners are; I had grandparents who never fully adapted to decimalisation. I'm not sure my students would know, though I don't teach a lot of prose where these things tend to come up; there's less explicit economics in poetry. I note that the Norton Anthology of Eng Lit has an appendix on British Pre-Decimal Money, but that's for Americans, I've always assumed. K.