List of Famous people who died in 1940

Walter Percy Chrysler was an American automotive industry executive and founder of Chrysler Corporation, now a part of Stellantis.

Josef Swickard was a German-born veteran stage and screen character actor, who had toured with stock companies in Europe, South Africa, and South America.

Jules-Louis Breton was an inventor and a French politician. He was a representative of the French Assembly, and the proponent of the Breton-Prétot machine, a device developed in France from November 1914, intended to cut a way through barbed wire on the battlefield. It was developed with an engineer named Prétot, but did not progress beyond the experimental stage.

Julia Daudet, born Julia Allard, was a French writer, poet and journalist. She was the wife and collaborator of Alphonse Daudet, mother of Léon Daudet, Lucien Daudet and Edmée Daudet.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky,, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I. Later he established several Jewish organizations in Palestine, including Betar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun.

Valery Ivanovich Glivenko was a Soviet mathematician. He worked in foundations of mathematics, real analysis, probability theory, and mathematical statistics. He taught at Moscow Industrial Pedagogical Institute until his death at age 43. Most of Glivenko's work was published in French.

Laurence Alma-Tadema, born Laurense Tadema, was an English writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked in many genres.