List of Famous people who born in 1942

Heinrich Breloer is a German author and film director. He has mainly worked on docudramas related to modern German history and has received many awards. Breloer's 2005 docudrama Speer und Er was described as a milestone in the understanding of Nazi Germany by the German people.

Daniel Boone is an English pop musician who became a one-hit wonder in the United States with the single "Beautiful Sunday" in 1972. The song was written by Boone and Rod McQueen and sold over 2,000,000 copies worldwide. It peaked at #15 on The Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the end of the summer of 1972, having already reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart earlier during that same year. In 1972, Boone was the recipient of the "Most Likeable Singer" award from Rolling Stone magazine.

Morio Matsui is a Japanese artist who has lived and worked in Corsica, France, since 1998.

James William Loewen is an American sociologist, historian, and author, who is best known for his 1995 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, which was republished in 2008, and then again in 2018.

James Roger McGuinn is an American musician. He is best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the Byrds.

José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, better known as Bonga, is a folk and semba singer and songwriter from Angola.

Otto Brixner is a former German judge. He was the presiding judge of the 7th Chamber of the criminal division of the Nuremberg-Fürth District Court, Germany.

Shigetada Nakanishi is a Japanese biochemist and neuroscientist. Both a medical doctor and biomedical researcher by training, Nakanishi is the director of the Osaka Bioscience Institute and professor emeritus at Kyoto University. He has received several scientific awards for his research in neuroscience, having characterized the molecular structure or function of several protein receptors.

Emilio Gutiérrez Caba is a Spanish film and television actor.

Denise Darvall was the donor in the world's first successful human heart transplant, performed at Groote Schuur Hospital, South Africa, by a team of surgeons led by Christiaan Barnard.