List of Famous people who born in 1940

Adrian Tan Cheng Bock is a Singaporean politician, medical doctor and was a candidate for the 2011 presidential election. He is the founder and first secretary-general of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

Denis Law is a Scottish former footballer who played as a forward. His career as a football player began at Second Division Huddersfield Town in 1956. After four years at Huddersfield, he was signed by Manchester City for an estimated transfer fee of £55,000, which set a new British record. Law spent one year there before Torino bought him for £110,000, this time setting a new record fee for a transfer involving a British player. Although he played well in Italy, he found it difficult to settle there and signed for Manchester United in 1962, setting another British record transfer fee of £115,000.

Dame Esther Louise Rantzen is an English journalist and television presenter, who presented the BBC television series That's Life! for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. She works with various charitable causes, and founded the charities ChildLine, promoting child protection, which she set up in 1986, and The Silver Line, designed to combat loneliness in older people's lives, which she set up in November 2012.

Helmut Jahn is a Chicago-based German-American architect, known for designs such as the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; and the Suvarnabhumi Airport, an international airport in Bangkok, Thailand. Recent projects include a residential tower in New York City, 50 West St in 2016 and the ThyssenKrupp Test Tower in Rottweil, Germany in 2017.

Jules Régis Debray is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society, and for associating with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and advancing Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile in the early 1970s. He returned to France in 1973 and later held various official posts in the French government.

Leonor "Liling" Mirasol Magtolis-Briones is a Filipino academician, economist, and civil servant who is the incumbent Secretary of Education under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. She is also professor emeritus of public administration at the National College of Public Administration & Governance (NCPAG) of the University of the Philippines Diliman and was chairman of the board of directors of Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

Monica Evans is an English actress known for her portrayal of Cecily Pigeon in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. She was in the original Broadway cast for its entire run, then appeared in the film version in 1968, and finally appeared in some episodes of the first season of the television series based on the play, all in the same role, alongside Carole Shelley as her sister Gwendolyn Pigeon. She also provided voices for the Disney animated films The Aristocats, as Abigail Gabble and Robin Hood (1973) as Maid Marian.

João Carlos Gandra da Silva Martins ; born June 25, 1940 in Sao Paulo, Brazil) is an acclaimed Brazilian classical pianist and conductor, who has performed with leading orchestras in the United States, Europe and Brazil.

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2 Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

John Alderton is an English actor who is best known for his roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Thomas & Sarah, Wodehouse Playhouse, Little Miss, Please Sir! and Fireman Sam. Alderton has often starred alongside his wife, Pauline Collins.