List of Famous people who died in 1940

Julius Wagner-Jauregg was an Austrian physician, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1927, and is the first psychiatrist to have done so. His Nobel award was "for his discovery of the therapeutic value of malaria inoculation in the treatment of dementia paralytica".

George Gibson Macaulay was a professional English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1920 and 1935. He played in eight Test matches for England from 1923 to 1933, achieving the rare feat of taking a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket. One of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1924, he took 1,838 first-class wickets at an average of 17.64 including four hat-tricks.

Fusajirō Yamauchi was a Japanese entrepreneur who founded the company that is now known as Nintendo. Yamauchi lived in Kyoto, Japan and had a wife and a daughter, Tei Yamauchi, who later married Sekiryo Kaneda.

Squadron Leader Caesar Barrand Hull, DFC was a Royal Air Force (RAF) flying ace during the Second World War, noted especially for his part in the fighting for Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and for being one of "The Few"—the Allied pilots of the Battle of Britain, in which he was shot down and killed. From a farming family, Hull's early years were spent in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa and Swaziland. He boxed for South Africa at the 1934 Empire Games. After being turned down by the South African Air Force because he did not speak Afrikaans, he joined the RAF and, on becoming a pilot officer in August 1936, mustered into No. 43 Squadron at RAF Tangmere in Sussex.

Paterson Clarence Hughes, DFC was an Australian fighter ace of World War II. Serving with the Royal Air Force (RAF), he was credited with as many as seventeen aerial victories during the Battle of Britain, before being killed in action on 7 September 1940. His tally made him the highest-scoring Australian of the battle, and among the three highest-scoring Australians of the war.

Keshav Baliram Hedgewar was the founding Sarsanghachalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Hedgewar founded the RSS in Nagpur in 1925, based on the ideology of Hindutva with the intention of creating a Hindu Rashtra.

Sabat M. Islambouli was one of the first Kurdish female physicians from Syria. She was born to a Kurdish-Jewish family. She has had variations of the spelling of her name and is also known as Sabat Islambooly, Tabat Islambouly, Tabat Istanbuli, Thabat Islambooly and more.

Madeleine Talmage (Force) Astor Dick Fiermonte was an American socialite and a survivor of the RMS Titanic. She was also the second wife and widow of businessman John Jacob Astor IV.

Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer,, was an Irish Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer and later the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India between 1913 and 1919.

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author and teacher. She published her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was awarded in 1909. Additionally, she was the first woman to be granted a membership in the Swedish Academy in 1914.