Reserve currency before the beginning of the worldwide credit crunch related recession and Eurozone crisis, which harmed the euro and slowed its adoption. Since 2009, the reserve currency use of the euro has continued to drop, down to 23.9 percent in 2013. The Dutch guilder was the "de facto" reserve currency in Europe in 17th and 18th centuries. The United Kingdom's pound sterling was the primary reserve currency of much of the world in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The emergence of the USA as an economic superpower, and the establishment of the U.S. Federal Reserve System
Oldest profession (phrase) called “the oldest profession in the world", a profession which is carried on in Piccadilly, Regent street, and other parts of London with great energy every night … In the same year the "Pall Mall Gazette" reported a speech in which "Mrs. Ormiston Chant … implored us to stand shoulder to shoulder and destroy what Kipling has called 'the oldest profession in the world'". The phrase was frequently used as a euphemism when delicacy forbade direct reference to prostitution. Kipling was not the first to employ the phrase "the most ancient profession" in an opprobrious sense. The Irish poet Henry