1962    Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.

1963    The second period of the Second Vatican Council opens.

1964    Second Vatican Council: The third session of the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.

1965    ''Nostra Aetate'', the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Innocent III's 760 year-old declaration.

1982    During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an "agent of Moscow".