Hangeul has 24 letters, 14 consonants and 10 vowels.
The alphabet was made during the ruling of Sejong the Great (1418) , from the Joseon Dynasty but it was not finished until the year 1444.
(The letters say: Sejong (세종)Daewang (대왕) [shortened name from the official title]- interesting fact '대' means 'greatness' and '왕' means king- so the name would be Sejong The Great King)
There's a day to celebrate Hangeul in South Korea- October 9th and in North Korea- January 15 (named Chosongui Day).
The reason why Hangeul was invented is because before Hangeul people would use hanja (or Chinese characters) to write Korean. Since only wealthy people were able to understand and write hanja and since Korean pronounciation was different to the Chinese, there was a need to create an alphabet the Korean population could use.
There's a document explaining how Hangeul was made, the rules and examples called Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye which allegedly says 'A wise man can acquaint himself with them [Hangeul letters] before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days'.
The tenth king, though, decided to ban Hangeul documents and prohibited the study of the alphabet during the early 1500's, until 1894 when the alphabet was allowed for official documents. BUT it wasn't until after the Koreas' independence from Japan that Hangeul was officially used in North and South Korea as the official script of the Korean language.
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