Born in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920, Karol Josef Wojtyla was the son of a retired army officer and a school teacher.He had a strict, devout upbringing. His mother and brother died before he was 14.

As a young man he enjoyed sports, including soccer and skiing, and had a love of acting and the theatre. He was still a teenager in 1939 when German tanks invaded Poland.

Karol Wojtyla was to be the youngest pope ordained in the 20th Century.

Wojtyla secretly studied theology during the Nazi occupation of Poland, in secret. By age 34 he had two doctorates and was a professor of ethics.

Continuing his studies after the war, he was ordained a priest in 1946. By 1964 he was Archbishop of Krakow and three years later he became a cardinal.

A cardinal at 47, he led the only moral and social force in Poland that could counter communism.

In October 1978, Wojtyla became the first Slavic pope ever and the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. He took the name John Paul II.

One of his first visits was to Poland - the first papal visit to a nation under Communist rule. But his tour gave strength to people and helped sow the seeds of the revolution that would come 10 years later.

While the pope was circling St. Peter's Square before a general audience in May 1981, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca opened fire. He returned to the Vatican after 22 days in Gemelli hospital in Rome.

He is pictured here just moments before the shooting.

In December 1983, the pope offered forgiveness to Agca during a meeting in prison. During the trial, Agca had claimed that East European communist agents had helped him set up the attack on the pope, but he later recanted.

In May 2000 the Vatican revealed that in 1917 three children in Portugal had seen a prophetic vision of the assassination attempt.

By the 1980s, the pope had reaffirmed the church's position on controversial issues such as abortion, birth control and the ordination of women. He communicated his message in eight languages and traveled widely.

Security around the Pope was tightened in the wake of the 1981 attempt on his life. His regular foreign tours gave the world a new word - Popemobile.

The glass-sided, bullet-proof cars, from which John Paul II stood and waved to the crowds, became a familiar sight.

In February he became the first pope to visit Egypt, a mainly Muslim country, where he called for harmony between different religions.

In March he expressed sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians, and spoke of the Church's sadness at the persecution and anti-Semitism directed at Jews by Christians.

The pope wished a Happy Easter to the world in 58 languages as part of his "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) address in April 1998.

The most widely traveled pope in history, age and deteriorating health forced John Paul II to cut back on his visits. He suffered from arthritis and Parkinson's disease. John Paul II also is the third-longest serving pope.