Sejong the Great Crowned in Joseon Korea

1418

The twenty-one-year-old fourth son, passed over only because his brothers renounced their claims, took the Korean throne. He would invent an alphabet, build rain gauges, commission star maps, and standardize music. Korean historians still date their golden age to the morning he put on the dragon robe. His creation of Hangul, designed so a wise man could learn it in a morning, remains one of history's greatest acts of linguistic engineering.