Karol Wojtyła was born to a modest family in Wadowice, near Kraków, in a Poland recently reconstituted after World War I. He would go on to survive Nazi occupation, work in a quarry, become a priest, and in 1978 be elected the first non-Italian pope in over 450 years, reigning for nearly 27 years and playing a pivotal role in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
Wojtyła's early life was marked by loss—his mother died when he was eight, his older brother died when he was twelve, and his father died when he was twenty. He studied literature and worked briefly as an actor before the Nazi invasion forced him into manual labor at a limestone quarry and chemical plant to avoid deportation.
He pursued priesthood clandestinely, part of an underground seminary during the occupation, and was ordained in 1946. His rise through the Polish church culminated in his elevation to Archbishop of Kraków and then, stunningly, to the papacy in 1978 as John Paul II.
As pope, he traveled more than any predecessor, survived an assassination attempt in 1981, and is widely credited with inspiring the Solidarity movement in his native Poland that helped unravel Soviet control over Eastern Europe. He was canonized as a saint in 2014.