John Patrick Byrne (6 January 1940 – 30 November 2023) was a Scottish playwright, screenwriter, artist and designer. He wrote The Slab Boys Trilogy, plays which explore working-class life in Scotland, and the TV dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin' Heart. Byrne was also a painter, printmaker and scenic designer.
Iain Campbell Mills (21 April 1940 – 16 January 1997) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Mills was born in Scotland but grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was educated at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He subsequently returned to Britain, where he worked as a Market Planning Executive for Dunlop, and helped design the tyres that Jackie Stewart won a World Drivers' Championship with. He married Gaynor Jeffries in 1971, and served as a councillor on Lichfield District Council from 1974 until 1976.
He entered the House of Commons at the 1979 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Meriden. He was a parliamentary private secretary to Norman Tebbit.On 16 January 1997, Mills was found dead from alcohol poisoning at his Dolphin Square flat, aged 56. This caused the government of John Major to lose its parliamentary majority.
Richard Terrance McDermott (September 20, 1940 – May 20, 2023), nicknamed The Essexville Rocket, was an American gold and silver medal-winning Olympic speed skater.
McDermott was a surprise winner in the 500 m at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck when he beat the favorite in that distance, reigning Olympic champion Yevgeny Grishin, by half a second. His coach at the time was Leo Freisinger, the 500 m bronze medal winner of the 1936 Winter Olympics. McDermott's international career consisted exclusively of the 500 m at the Olympic Winter Games of 1960, 1964 and 1968. In 1968 he skated in unfavorable conditions, late in the day when the sun melted the ice. Yet he finished only 0.2 seconds behind the winner.McDermott was inducted in the National Speedskating Hall of Fame on June 4, 1977. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, McDermott took the Olympic Oath representing the judges.McDermott worked as a barber from 1963 to 1967, and after that as a manufacturer's representative in the Detroit area. In parallel he served as a speed skating official. On February 9, 1964, he was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show, an appearance that was overshadowed by the first U.S. performance of The Beatles. He resided in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He was married to Virginia, and has five children and an elder sister Marilyn.McDermott died on May 20, 2023, at the age of 82.
Duncan "Dougal" Curdy MacSporran Haston (19 April 1940 – 17 January 1977) was a Scottish mountaineer noted for his exploits in the British Isles, Alps, and the Himalayas. From 1967 he was the director of the International School of Mountaineering at Leysin, Switzerland, a role he held until his death in an avalanche while skiing above Leysin.
Robert Anthony Buell (September 10, 1940 – September 25, 2002) was an American serial killer, child murderer, serial rapist, and former planning department worker from Akron, Ohio. He was convicted of the July 17, 1982 murder of 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison.Buell was executed by lethal injection on September 25, 2002. His final meal was a single black unpitted olive. In 2010, eight years after his death, he was found to have also killed Tina Marie Harmon.
Gerard Alsteens (born 3 August 1940, in Auderghem) is a Belgian political cartoonist, graphic artist and painter who works under the pseudonym "GAL". which, artistically speaking, share a closer resemblance to paintings than regularly drawn cartoons. Throughout the years his work has received several prizes and awards.
Robert Lee Hatfield (August 10, 1940 – November 5, 2003) was an American singer. He and Bill Medley were the Righteous Brothers. He sang the tenor part for the duo and sang solo on the group's 1965 recording of "Unchained Melody".
Charles Frank Mangione ( MAN-jee-OH-nee; born November 29, 1940) is an American flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer.
He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey's band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, Gap. He achieved international success in 1978 with his jazz-pop single "Feels So Good". Mangione has released more than 30 albums since 1960.
Ken Danby, D.F.A. (6 March 1940 – 23 September 2007) was a Canadian painter who created highly realistic paintings that study everyday life. His 1972 painting At the Crease, portraying a masked hockey goalie defending his net, is widely recognized and reproduced in Canada.
Roderick Wright (28 June 1940 – 23 May 2005) was a Scottish Roman Catholic bishop who served as the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles from 1990 to 1996.