Greek drachma 5 drachmae) were issued from 1885, with the first 5-drachma notes being made by cutting 10-drachma notes in half. When Greece finally achieved its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828, the phoenix was introduced as the monetary unit; its use was short-lived, however, and in 1832 the phoenix was replaced by the drachma, adorned with the image of King Otto of Greece, who reigned as modern Greece's first king from 1832 to 1862. The drachma was divided into 100 lepta. In 2002 the drachma ceased to be legal tender after the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union,
International status and usage of the euro would replace the US dollar with the euro as its official currency for the purposes of international trading. On 1 December 2002, North Korea did the same. (Its internal currency, the wŏn, is not convertible and thus cannot be used to purchase foreign goods. The euro also enjoys popularity domestically, especially among elites and resident foreigners.) Syria followed suit in 2006. In 2000, President of Iraq Saddam Hussein began the sale of his country's oil denominated in euros rather than US dollars since the majority of Iraqi oil trade was with the EU, India and China rather than the United