May 18, 1920: Karol Jozef Wojtyla is...

May 18, 1920: Karol Jozef Wojtyla is born in Wadowice, Poland.

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1938: After the deaths of his mother and older brother, Wojtyla and his father move to Krakow. The younger Wojtyla enrolls in Jagiellonian University’s philosophy department.

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1939: Nazis invade Poland; Wojtyla continues studies in secret and gets a job in a quarry.

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1941: Wojtyla’s father dies; the son becomes active in the Christian underground.

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1942: He begins studies for priesthood in an underground seminary.

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1944: Wojtyla’s name appears on the Nazis’ blacklist; he goes into hiding.

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1946: Wojtyla is ordained a priest.

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1948: He earns a doctorate in theology at Jagiellonian.

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1958: Wojtyla is ordained auxiliary bishop of Krakow.

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1964: Wojtyla is appointed archbishop.

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1967: He is elevated to cardinal.

Oct. 16, 1978: College of Cardinals elects Wojtyla, 58, as pope. He takes the name John Paul II.

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1979: On his first pastoral visit outside Italy, John Paul II travels to the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the Bahamas. He makes his first pastoral visit to his homeland, Poland. The pontiff visits the United States and addresses the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

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1981: Mehmet Ali Agca shoots John Paul in St. Peter’s Square on May 13. Four days later, the pope asks faithful to “pray for the brother who shot me.”

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1982: John Paul prays at Britain’s Canterbury Cathedral, the center of world Anglicanism, in a move toward closing a rift that had opened during the reign of Henry VIII four centuries earlier.

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1983: John Paul meets with Agca in a Rome prison.

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1986: The pope makes an unprecedented visit to Rome’s main synagogue.

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1987: John Paul makes his first visit to Los Angeles.

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1989: More than 400 European theologians sign the Cologne Declaration, protesting the pope’s appointment of conservative bishops.

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1992: John Paul acknowledges that Galileo was wrongly censured in 1633 by the Inquisition for asserting that Earth is not the center of the universe.

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1994: The Holy See establishes diplomatic relations with Israel. John Paul dispatches Vatican envoys to a U.N. conference in Cairo to join Islamic states in opposing legal abortion and contraception for women in developing countries.

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1998: John Paul meets with President Fidel Castro in Cuba. The Vatican issues a statement of repentance for the “errors” of Roman Catholics who failed to help Jews during the Holocaust. But it also defends Pius XII, the pope during the rise of fascism in Europe, whom some have accused of remaining silent.

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2000: The pontiff makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land as part of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year. Agca, the pope’s would-be assassin, is granted clemency by Italy’s president as the pontiff requested and is extradited to his native Turkey.

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2001: John Paul apologizes to Orthodox Christians for the 1204 sacking of Constantinople (now Istanbul), the center of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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2002: U.S. cardinals and Vatican officials meet to discuss the issue of sexual abuse of children by clerics. John Paul declares there is “no place in priesthood for those who would harm the young.”

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2003: The pope says a planned U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would be “illegal and unjust.” He beatifies Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

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2004: John Paul, in his final pastoral trip outside Italy, struggles through Mass at the Lourdes shrine in France, asking aides for help.

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2005: He is rushed to the hospital during a “breathing crisis” in a bout with the flu. He later undergoes a tracheostomy. April 2: After a series of complications, John Paul II dies.

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Sources: “John Paul II, A Light for the World,” Los Angeles Times