Who was alive in 1940?

3,536 well-known people were alive in 1940, including Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan. Here are the 80 most notable:

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) — dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, main instigator of World War II (1889–1945)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) — German-born theoretical physicist (1879–1955)
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) — president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and actor (1911–2004)
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) — President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist (1918–2013)
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) — Indian independence activist (1869–1948)
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) — leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) — Spanish painter and sculptor (1881–1973)
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) — English comic actor and filmmaker (1889–1977)
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) — British statesman, soldier and writer (1874–1965)
Elizabeth II (1926–2022) — Queen of the United Kingdom from 1952 to 2022 (1926–2022)
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) — president of the United States from 1961 to 1963 (1917–1963)
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) — Spanish artist (1904–1989)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) — president of the United States from 1933 to 1945 (1882–1945)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) — American Baptist minister and civil rights leader (1929–1968)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) — Bengali poet, philosopher and polymath (1861–1941)
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) — American actress and model (1926–1962)
Pope Francis (1936–2025) — 266th pope of the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 (1936–2025)
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) — 1st chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and founder of the People's Republic of China (1893–1976)
Che Guevara (1928–1967) — Argentine Marxist revolutionary (1928–1967)
Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) — French general and statesman (1890–1970)
Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) — American astronaut and lunar explorer (1930–2012)
Elvis Presley (1935–1977) — American singer and actor (1935–1977)
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) — Serbian-American engineer and inventor (1856–1943)
Walt Disney (1901–1966) — American animator, producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor and entrepreneur, founder of The Walt Disney Company (1901–1966)
George Orwell (1903–1950) — British writer and journalist (1903–1950)
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) — American author and journalist (1899–1961)
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) — British stateswoman and prime minister (1925–2013)
Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) — Colombian writer and Nobel laureate (1927–2014)
Albert Camus (1913–1960) — French philosopher, author, and journalist (1913–1960)
Fidel Castro (1926–2016) — Cuban politician, author and revolutionary (1926–2016)
James Joyce (1882–1941) — Irish novelist and poet (1882–1941)
John Paul II (1920–2005) — 264th pope of the Catholic Church (1978–2005)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) — English writer and philologist (1892–1973)
Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) — Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, first human in space (1934–1968)
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) — dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1945
Benedict XVI (1927–2022) — 265 th pope of the Catholic Church (2005–2013)
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) — leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 (1931–2022)
Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) — German and American actress and singer (1901–1992)
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) — president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 (1924–2024)
Henry Ford (1863–1947) — American business magnate (1863–1947)
Le Corbusier (1887–1965) — Swiss-French architect, designer, urbanist, and writer (1886–1965)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) — French existentialist philosopher (1905–1980)
Mother Teresa (1910–1997) — Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and missionary (1910–1997)
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) — Mexican painter (1907–1954)
Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) — president of the United States from 1945 to 1953; politician (1884–1972)
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) — English mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) — president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 (1924-2018)
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) — Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator (1899–1986)
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) — Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) — president of the United States from 1953 to 1961 (1890–1969)
Alan Turing (1912–1954) — English computer scientist (1912–1954)
Richard Nixon (1913–1994) — president of the United States from 1969 to 1974 (1913–1994)
Noam Chomsky (1928–) — American linguist and activist (born 1928)
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) — Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist (1856–1950)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) — British philosopher and logician (1872–1970)
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) — Danish physicist (1885–1962)
Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) — British filmmaker (1899–1980)
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) — British economist (1883–1946)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) — French philosopher, social theorist and activist (1908–1986)
John Lennon (1940–1980) — British musician (1940–1980)
Max Planck (1858–1947) — German theoretical physicist (1858–1947)
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) — Russian Marxist revolutionary (1879–1940)
Pelé (1940–2022) — Brazilian footballer (1940–2022)
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) — French artist (1869-1954)
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) — American artist, film director, and producer (1928–1987)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) — American architect (1867-1959)
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) — American jazz musician, trumpeter and singer (1901–1971)
Kofi Annan (1938–2018) — 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations (1938-2018)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) — president of the United States from 1963 to 1969 (1908–1973)
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) — president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 (1913–2006)
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) — English modernist writer (1882–1941)
Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) — Japanese filmmaker (1910–1998)
Huang Xianfan (1899–1982) — Chinese historian, ethnologist and educator (1899-1982)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) — Austrian philosopher and logician (1889–1951)
Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) — Egyptian writer (1911–2006)
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) — Prime Minister of India (1966-1977; 1980-1984)
Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) — leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) — English writer (1866–1946)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) — French writer and aviator (1900–1944)
Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) — Italian–American physicist (1901–1954)

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