" The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's The Cometeers ( 1936 ) and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future ( 1940 – 1944 ).

* 1940 – Homero Aridjis, Mexican writer and diplomat

* 1940 – Pedro Armendáriz Jr., Mexican actor

* 1874 – William B. Bankhead, American politician ( d. 1940 )

* 1892 – Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – John Hagee, American pastor and televangelist

* 1940 – Herbie Hancock, American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer

* 1857 – Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – Burt Young, American actor

* 1874 – Carl Bosch, German chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – Sonny Sharrock, American guitarist ( Last Exit ) ( d. 1994 )

* 1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.

* 1940 – Mukhu Aliyev, Russian politician

* 1940 – Louise Sorel, American actress

* 1857 – Manuel de Escandón, Mexican polo player ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – Bill Musselman, American basketball coach ( d. 2000 )

* 1940 – Beko Ransome-Kuti, Nigerian doctor and activist ( d. 2006 )

* 1940 – Will Tura, Belgian singer-songwriter, musician, and composer

2 # 1 ( Jan., 1940 ), pp. 87 – 104 in JSTOR

* 1881 – Otto Toeplitz, German mathematician ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – Mervyn Kitchen, English cricketer and umpire

* 1940 – Ram Loevy, Israeli screenwriter and director

* 1940 – World War II: Italian forces begin the invasion of British Somaliland.

* 1940 – Lance Alworth, American football player

* 1940 – Martin Sheen, American actor

* January 17 – Gary Gilmore, American murderer ( executed ) ( b. 1940 )

Wrote jazz historian Gary Giddins in Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years 1903 – 1940:

Andrews signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and nine years after arriving in Los Angeles was offered his first movie role in William Wyler's The Westerner ( 1940 ), starring Gary Cooper.

By 1967, the group included Gary " Chicken " Hirsh ( drums ) ( born March 9, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois ); David Cohen ( keyboards ) ( born August 4, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York ) and Bruce Barthol ( bass ) ( born November 11, 1947 in Berkeley, California ).

Gary Mark Gilmore ( December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977 ) was an American who gained international notoriety for demanding that his own death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah.

Some of his other movies include If I Had A Million ( 1932 ; an episodic ensemble film in which he plays a forger hiding from police, suddenly given a million dollars with no place to cash the check ), Bolero ( 1934 ; in a rare role as a dancer rather than a gangster ), Limehouse Blues ( 1934 ; with Anna May Wong ), a brutal and fast-paced adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key ( 1935 ; remade in 1942 with Alan Ladd in Raft's role as a result of the success of the remake of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon ), Souls at Sea ( 1937 ; with Gary Cooper ), Spawn of the North ( 1938 ; with Raft garnering top billing over Henry Fonda and John Barrymore ), two with Humphrey Bogart: Invisible Stripes ( 1939 ) and They Drive by Night ( 1940 ), with Bogart in supporting roles, Each Dawn I Die ( 1939 ; with James Cagney and Raft as convicts in prison ), and Manpower ( 1941 ; with Edward G. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich ).

He was cast as Wade Harper in The Westerner ( 1940 ), which starred Gary Cooper.

* Gary Kurtz ( born 1940 ), a producer on Star Wars

In one of his briefest roles, Chaliapin dies in the arms of Gary Cooper in the opening scenes of For Whom the Bell Tolls ( 1943 ), which was based on Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel.

Gary Troxel ( born November 28, 1939, Centralia, Washington ) and Gretchen Christopher ( born February 29, 1940, Olympia, Washington ) and Barbara Ellis ( born February 20, 1940, Olympia, Washington ) were three Olympia High School students.

The Westerner ( 1940 ) is an American film directed by William Wyler, and starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, and Doris Davenport, and written by Niven Busch, Stuart N. Lake, and Jo Swerling,

Gary Kurtz ( born July 27, 1940 in Los Angeles, California ) is an American film producer whose list of credits include American Graffiti, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.

History Today magazine in summer 2006, published an article by Brian James describing how three military historians, Drs Christina Goulter and Gary Sheffield as well as Dr Gordon, who teach on the higher command and staff course at Shrivenham have concluded that it was the Royal Navy, and not the RAF, that prevented a German invasion in 1940.

* 1940 – James Tyler, American guitarist, composer, and author ( d. 2010 )

* 1940 – Dennis Tito, American engineer and businessman, founded Wilshire Associates

* 1863 – Ernest Thayer, American poet ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – Galen Hall, American football player and coach

* 1940 – Johnny Nash, American singer-songwriter and actor

* 1940 – Jill St. John, American actress

* 1875 – Walter Chrysler, American automobile pioneer ( d. 1940 )

* 1940 – William Cohen, American politician and author, 20th United States Secretary of Defense

* 1940 – Ken Jenkins, American actor

* 1940 – James Brady, American activist, 15th White House Press Secretary

* 1940 – Joseph L. Goldstein, American scientist, Nobel laureate

* 1940 – Lennie Pond, American race car driver

* 1940 – Genya Ravan, American singer ( Goldie & the Gingerbreads and Ten Wheel Drive )

* 1940 – Bobby Hatfield, American singer-songwriter ( The Righteous Brothers ) ( d. 2003 )