John Paul II, the first Polish pope
The first non-Italian pope since 1522
On 16 October 1978 the conclave elected the Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, who took the name John Paul II. His 1979 visit to Poland drew millions and is credited with helping give rise to Solidarity. He led the Church for almost 27 years, longer than any other 20th-century pope.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — 10 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 2 years later
- 1981 AIDS first described — 3 years later
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol — 19 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 21 years earlier
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 17 years earlier
- 1985–1991 Perestroika — 7 years later
- 1989 Revolutions of 1989 — 11 years later
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union — 13 years later
Middle East
- 1978 Camp David Accords — same year
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 1 year later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 2 years later
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 12 years later
- 1993 Oslo Accords — 15 years later
Africa
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 15 years earlier
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 11 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 11 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 4 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 5 years later
Asia
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 25 years earlier
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — 12 years earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 3 years earlier
- 1976 Tangshan earthquake — 2 years earlier
- 1978 Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up — same year
Americas
- 1969 Moon landing — 9 years earlier
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 8 years earlier
- 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens — 2 years later
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 5 years later
- 2001 September 11 attacks — 23 years later
Oceania
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 24 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 19 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 14 years later
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 60)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 48)
- Golda Meir (aged 80)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 79)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 77)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (aged 73)
- Leonid Brezhnev (aged 72)
- Mother Teresa (aged 68)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 67)
- Richard Nixon (aged 65)