On October 9th 1446, King Sejong the Great introduced the Hunminjeongeum (meaning, "the verbally right sounds meant to teach the people"). This book taught Hangul, the Korean language, to the Koreans. It's a phonetic language. It consists of 28 letters and each character contains at least two - one vowel and one consonant. Before 1446, most of the population was illiterate and those that weren't used Chinese characters in their writing. When King Sejong introduced Hangul, the nobles all hated it, I guess because they didn't want to learn another language, but the poor people learned it and started to write shit down.
"Sejong depended on the agricultural produce of Joseon's farmers, so he allowed them to pay more or less tax according to fluctuations of economic prosperity or hard times. Because of this, farmers could worry less about tax quotas and work instead at surviving and selling their crops. Once the palace had a significant surplus of food, King Sejong then distributed food to poor peasants or farmers who needed it."
Right now in the office, some teachers are singing "I have a dream" along with a computer karaoke program.
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