On May 13, 1981 he was hit by three bullets fired by Mehmed Ali Agca, a 23-year-old Turk, but survived after a five-and-a-half hour operation and was able to leave hospital three weeks later.

He had already been targeted a month earlier while on a visit to Pakistan. On February 16, 20 minutes before he arrived in a stadium in Karachi to celebrate mass, a man died when a grenade he had intended to throw at the pope exploded in his pocket.

-- On May 13, 1982, a Spanish fundamentalist priest, Juan Maria Fernandez Krohn, attacked the pope with a knife as he visited the shrine of Fatima in Portugal.

-- On June 20, 1983, police in Rome arrested a Pole carrying a knife as he waited along the route the pope was due to follow.

-- On May 6, 1984, in the South Korean capital Seoul, a young Korean attempted to attack the pope with a pistol which on examination proved to be a toy.

-- On September 17, 1984, Toronto police arrested a man carrying a knife and a stolen invitation at a reception in the pope's honour.

-- On December 13, 1984, Venezuelan police in Caracas arrested a suspected far-right militant found to be carrying weapons and a detailed account of the sites due to be visited by the pope during his visit the following month.

-- On September 29, 1990, Ivory Coast president Felix Houphouet-Boigny said opposition parties had organised a plot against the pope during his visit to Yamoussoukro a few days earlier, but gave no proof.

-- On April 12, 1997, on the eve of a papal visit to Sarajevo, explosives hidden along the route the pope was due to follow were defused following a tip-off.

The pontiff received numerous death threats prior to his pastoral visits outside Italy.