7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

a vote of 246 to 24—only the representatives from Quebec

dissented. On April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth II declared

Canada’s independence from the British Parliament. With

these major political aims realized, Trudeau spent his final

years in office seeking greater economic independence for

Canada, forming better trade relations between industri-

alized democracies and Third World nations, and urging

further international disarmament talks. On Feb. 29, 1984,

Trudeau resigned from the leadership of the Liberal Party,

but he remained in office until John Turner was chosen to

succeed him at the party leadership convention in June of

that same year.

John Paul II

(b. May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Pol.—d. April 2, 2005, Vatican City)

B

orn Karol Józef Wojtyła, John Paul II was the first

non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first ever from a

Slavic country. He served as the bishop of Rome and head

of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005.

The first two decades of Wojtyła’s life coincided with

the only period of independence that Poland would know

between 1772 and 1989. He thus grew up experiencing

national freedom but also understanding its vulnerability.

After one year at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków,

Wojtyła’s formal studies were interrupted when German

forces invaded Poland in September 1939. He continued

his studies in the university’s clandestine classes, and, to

avoid Nazi arrest, worked for chemical manufacturer

Solvay—making him the only pope in modern times to

have been a laborer.

Wojtyła was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in

November 1946. He immediately left Poland for two years

of study in Rome, earning his first doctorate in philosophy