Hang on for Hangeul

There is an interesting article in the Korean Times about the origins of Hangeul, the script in which Korean is written. Korean evolved from Classical Chinese, and in the early centuries it was written using Chinese characters. But, because written Chinese was so difficult to learn, Hangeul was invented during the 15th Century. However, like all innovations, it took a while to catch on and initially it wasn't used for serious texts. In fact, it wasn't until the final decade of the 19th Century that the use of Hangeul became widespread in Korea.