But can you name each Real World city?

Living in Europe, every now and then I'm reminded how little Americans learn about world history in school. For example, the other night we were out with work colleagues in Madrid when we came across a statue (as you do in Europe) of someone who had fought in the Battle of Lepanto. My European colleagues all nodded their heads knowingly, while I scanned my memory bank to see if "Lepanto" registered anywhere, to no avail. (Thankfully, my Canadian colleague was equally unaware, so maybe it's a North American thing...) Anyway, after a few drinks I fessed up to being ignorant as to the Battle of Lepanto, at which point I got a tutorial on its historic importance. How had I not heard of it? Who do I talk to about this? And what does the fact that I was once a high school history teacher say about the sorry state of American education?