Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in 1920 in Poland and lost both of his parents and brother at a young age. He entered the seminary in 1942 and was ordained as a priest in 1946. He became Pope John Paul II in 1978, the first non-Italian Pope in over 400 years, and he greatly expanded the global reach and popularity of the papacy through his extensive international travel over the next 27 years until his death in 2005.