Karol Wojtyla, better known to many as "Pope John Paul II," was born in Wadowice, Poland, in 1920. Following the death of Pope John Paul I in the "Year of Three Popes" of 1978, he was elected – to almost everyone's complete surprise – as his successor at the head of the Catholic Church.
As a young man, he experienced dictatorships under the Nazi regime in German-occupied Poland and later under communist rule. During the Cold War, his support for freedom movements, especially in Eastern European countries, and his contribution to the fall of the so-called "Iron Curtain" that separated Western European states from the Eastern Bloc were correspondingly strong and passionate.
Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) died in the Vatican in 2005 after a long illness.