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

* 1940 – Lance Alworth, American football player

* 1940 – Martin Sheen, American actor

In January 1940, Sahib Ram courted arrest as a satyagrahi in the presence of Devi Lal and over ten thousand people.

** Yossef Romano, Israeli weightlifter ( b. 1940 )

Other historians, such as the German historian Wolfgang Michalka, the Anglo-German historian H. W Koch and the Israeli historian Martin van Creveld, have contended that Hitler's efforts to form an anti-British Eurasian " continental bloc " that was to include the Soviet Union in late 1940 as a diplomatic prelude to the " Mediterranean plan " were sincere, that until December 1940 Hitler's first priority was in defeating Britain, and that it was only when Hitler gave his approval to Operation Barbarossa that he finally lost interest in the " Mediterranean strategy ".

* Uzi Even ( born 1940 ), Israeli professor of chemistry as well as a politician

* Uzi Even ( born 1940 ), Israeli professor of chemistry and former politician

Yossi Sarid (, born 24 October 1940 ) is a left-wing Israeli news commentator and former politician.

Colette Avital (, born 1 May 1940 ) is an Israeli diplomat and politician.

Tamar Gozansky (, also spelt Tamar Gozhansky, born 3 October 1940 ) is an Israeli politician.

Professor Uzi Even (, born 18 October 1940 ) is an Israeli professor of physical chemistry in Tel Aviv University and a former politician.

Uri Milstein (; born 1940 ) is an Israeli military historian and poet.

* 1940 – James L. Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter

* 1940 – David Rabe, American playwright and screenwriter

Terrence Vance " Terry " Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940 ) is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.

Bruce Lee ( traditional: 李小龍 ) ( born Lee Jun-fan ; 27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973 ) was a Hong Kongese actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, founder of Jeet Kune Do, and the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-Chuen.

* David Peoples ( born c. 1940 ), American screenwriter

* Wilfred Lucas ( 1871 – 1940 ), director, screenwriter, actor

* October 17-Nathanael West, US novelist and screenwriter ( died 1940 )

* Tony Holland, ( 18 January 1940 – 28 November 2007 ), screenwriter for the BBC

María Elena Velasco Fragoso de Lipkies ( born December 17, 1940 ) is a Mexican actress, film director, award-winning screenwriter, producer and singer.

Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940 ) is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter.

Anna Karina ( born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer ; 22 September 1940 ) is a Danish, now French citizen, film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France.

Other novels about the university include Geese in the Forum ( Knopf, 1940 ) by Lawrence Edward Watkin, a professor of English who went on to become a screenwriter for Disney ( the college faculty were the titular geese ); The Hero ( Julian Messner, 1949 ), by Millard Lampell, filmed as Saturday's Hero, starring Donna Reed and John Derek ( Columbia Studios, 1951 ), about a football player who struggles to balance athletics, academics and a social life ; and A Sound of Voices Dying by Glenn Scott ( E. P.

Charley Chase ( October 20, 1893 – June 20, 1940 ) was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies.

George Andrew Romero (; born February 4, 1940 ) is an American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, beginning with Night of the Living Dead ( 1968 ).

* January 30-Wilfred Lucas, actor, film director and screenwriter ( d. 1940 )

Abbas Kiarostami ( Abbās Kiyārostamī ; born 22 June 1940 ) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer.

Thomas Harris ( born April 11, 1940 ) is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter.

James Lawrence Brooks ( born May 9, 1940 ) is an American director, producer and screenwriter.

* David Seltzer ( born 1940 ), American screenwriter, producer, and director

His first film as a screenwriter was the film Nanshin josei in 1940.

Wilfred Lucas ( January 30, 1871 – December 13, 1940 ) was a Canadian-born American stage actor who found success in film as an actor, director, and screenwriter.

Ron Haydock ( 17 April 1940, Chicago, Illinois – 14 August 1977, Victorville, California ) was an American actor, screenwriter, novelist and rock musician.

Ian Mackintosh, MBE, ( born 26 July 1940 ; disappeared and presumed dead July 1979 ) was a Scottish naval officer, a writer of thriller novels, and a screenwriter for British television.

March worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood until 1940, under contract to MGM and Paramount and later as a freelancer for Republic Pictures and other studios ; he wrote at least 19 produced scripts in his Hollywood career.