List of Famous people who born in 1940

Josef Emanuel Hubertus "Sepp" Piontek is a German former footballer and manager.

David Lan Hong-Tsung GBS, ISO, JP is a former politician and civil servant in Hong Kong who served as the Secretary for Home Affairs from September 1997 to 7 July 2000. He is currently a National Committee Member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference representing Hong Kong, serving in that post since January 2003.

Shuna Harwood is a British costume designer. She was nominated at the 68th Academy Awards for the film Richard III in the category of Best Costumes.

Roland du Luart is a former member of the Senate of France, who represented the Sarthe department. He was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement and served as one of the Senate's vice-presidents.

Liang Guanglie is a retired general and former Minister for National Defense in the People's Republic of China.

William Cheung or Cheung Cheuk Hing, born October, 1940, is a Hong Kong Wing Chun kung fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun, entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC). He also heads the sanctioning body of TWC, the Global Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu Association (GTWCKFA). Cheung is responsible for introducing Bruce Lee to his master Ip Man when they were teenagers in Hong Kong.

William David Arnett is a Regents Professor of Astrophysics at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, known for his research on supernova explosions, the formation of neutron stars or black holes by gravitational collapse, and the synthesis of elements in stars; he is author of the monograph Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis which deals with these topics. Arnett pioneered the application of supercomputers to astrophysical problems, including neutrino radiation hydrodynamics, nuclear reaction networks, instabilities and explosions, supernova light curves, and turbulent convective flow in two and three dimensions.