1940 births

Michel_Brunet_(paleontologist)

Michel Brunet (born April 6, 1940) is a French paleontologist and a professor at the Collège de France. In 2001 Brunet announced the discovery in Central Africa of the skull and jaw remains of a late Miocene hominid nicknamed Toumaï. These remains may predate the earliest previously known hominid remains, Lucy, by over three million years; however, this conclusion is the subject of a significant controversy.

Rosel_Zech

Rosalie Helga Lina Zech (7 July 1940 – 31 August 2011), known as Rosel Zech, was a German theater and film actress, she is most well known for her works associated with the "Autorenkino" (New German Cinema) movement, which began in the 1970s.

Garry_Roggenburk

Garry Earl Roggenburk (born April 16, 1940) is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher. The left-hander was listed as a lanky 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall and 195 pounds (88 kg). Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he was a high school teammate of Mike Hegan's at Saint Ignatius High School. The two would later be teammates with the 1969 Seattle Pilots.Roggenburk attended the University of Dayton, where he played college baseball and starred in basketball, leading Dayton to the 1962 National Invitation Tournament championship. He entered professional baseball in 1962 when he was signed by the Minnesota Twins. He was also selected in the fourth round (34th overall) of the 1962 NBA draft by the San Francisco Warriors.

Doug_Gallagher

Douglas Eugene Gallagher (February 21, 1940 – December 17, 2017) was an American professional baseball player and left-handed pitcher who appeared in nine games for the Detroit Tigers in 1962. Born in Fremont, Ohio, he batted right-handed and was listed as 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and 195 pounds (88 kg).
Gallagher attended Fremont Ross High School before signing with the Tigers' organization in 1958. He made his professional debut with the Class-D Erie Sailors of the New York-Pennsylvania League. He threw a no-hitter for the Double-A Birmingham Barons in the 1961 Southern Association playoffs. Overall he was 15–9 for the Barons that season, which led to his getting called up to the Tigers the following season.Gallagher made his Major League Baseball debut as a relief pitcher on April 9, 1962, opening day, against the Washington Senators, a game attended by President John F. Kennedy. He pitched 11⁄3 innings of relief in the game, allowing two hits and striking out Bennie Daniels. He would pitch in nine total games for the Tigers that season, including making two starts, and finished with an 0–4 record and 4.68 ERA in 25 full innings pitched. He allowed 31 hits and 15 bases on balls, and was credited with 14 strikeouts.
One highlight of Gallagher's MLB career came on April 27, 1962, when he pitched the final three innings against the Los Angeles Angels to preserve a 13–4 Tigers' victory for future Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Bunning and pick up his lone big-league save.The following year, Gallagher was invited to spring training, where the Tigers wanted him to work on his curveball in an effort to get him back on the MLB roster. However, he ended up not making the varsity, and 1962 became his only year in the majors.After his playing career, he served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. In later life, he coached American Legion Baseball.

Jerry_Fosnow

Gerald Eugene Fosnow (born September 21, 1940) is an American former professional baseball player, a left-handed pitcher who appeared in parts of the 1964 and 1965 seasons for the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball. Fosnow batted right-handed, stood 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and weighed 195 pounds (88 kg).
Originally signed by the Cleveland Indians, Fosnow pitched a no-hit game on August 20, 1959, his first professional season, in the Class D Alabama–Florida League. He was eventually acquired by the Twins' farm system and was recalled by Minnesota from the Triple-A Atlanta Crackers in the middle of the 1964 season. In seven appearances and 10+2⁄3 innings pitched, all in relief, Fosnow sported a 0–1 win–loss record and a poor 10.64 earned run average.
However, he earned a job in the 1965 Twins' bullpen coming out of spring training and won his first Major League game on Opening Day, April 12, pitching two scoreless innings against the New York Yankees in relief of Jim Kaat. The Yankees were the defending American League champions, but the 1965 Twins would go on to win the AL pennant, the first for the franchise since its relocation to the Twin Cities in 1961. Fosnow would appear in 29 games that season, and compile a 3–3 record with a 4.44 earned average in 46+2⁄3 innings. But he was sent to the Triple-A Denver Bears after his last MLB game on July 16, 1965, and did not appear on the Twins' World Series roster. He left baseball after the 1967 season.

Ethan_Blackaby

Ethan Allen Blackaby (July 24, 1940 – January 16, 2022) was an American professional baseball player who was an outfielder in Major League Baseball, appearing in 15 games for the Milwaukee Braves during the 1962 and 1964 seasons. He threw and batted left-handed, stood 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 190 pounds (86 kg).
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Blackaby attended Canton, Illinois, High School, where he was a multi-sport standout athlete. He played baseball and football at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign before signing with the Braves in 1961. His nine-year professional career included 1,073 games in minor league baseball, punctuated by his two trials with the Braves in the closing weeks of the 1962 and 1964 campaigns, when MLB rosters expanded to 40 players. In his debut on September 6, 1962, he doubled in his first MLB at bat against Ernie Broglio of the St. Louis Cardinals. He had entered the game as a pinch hitter for Braves' catcher Bob Uecker, who later became both a film and television actor and Baseball Hall of Fame play-by-play broadcaster. Blackaby collected only two other hits in the majors, both singles, in 25 at bats over his two brief trials.
After his playing days were over, Blackaby was part-owner and general manager of the Phoenix Giants of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Blackaby died on January 16, 2022, at the age of 81.

Joe_Nossek

Joseph Rudolph Nossek (born November 8, 1940) is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder, coach and scout. He threw and batted right-handed, and stood 6' (183 cm) tall and weighed 178 pounds (81 kg) as an active player.

Marion_Michael

Marion Michael (17 October 1940 – 13 October 2007) was a German film actress and singer. She was best known for her role in the 1956 film Liane, Jungle Goddess. She was also the second German actress to appear nude on film, after Hildegard Knef who starred in the German film The Sinner in the 1950s.Michael was born Marion Ilonka Michaela Delonge in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). She was selected for the role of Liane in Liane, Jungle Goddess out of 12,000 prospective actresses. She was only 15 at the time of the filming, which took place on location in Africa, and she controversially appeared topless during the first half of the movie. The movie was a box office success. However, none of her following 10 films over the next six years were as successful.Michael suffered injuries in a car accident during this time period. She returned to acting, but stopped again in 1965. She suffered a bout of depression and, unusually, moved from West Germany to Communist East Germany.Michael sometimes returned to film and television acting later in her life, but only rarely. However, despite her lack of screen time after the 1960s, she remained a well known German film icon. Her last onscreen appearance was in a 1996 German television musical about her life, entitled Liane.Michael died of heart failure in Gartz, Brandenburg, four days shy of her 67th birthday.

Joan_Snyder

Joan Snyder (born April 16, 1940) is an American painter from New York. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow (1974).Snyder first gained public attention in the early 1970s with her gestural and elegant "stroke paintings," which used the grid to deconstruct and retell the story of abstract painting. By the late seventies, Snyder had abandoned the formality of the grid. She began more explicitly incorporating symbols and text, as the paintings took on a more complex materiality. These early works were included in the 1973 and 1981 Whitney Biennials and the 1975 Corcoran Biennial.
Often referred to as an autobiographical or confessional artist, Snyder's paintings are narratives of both personal and communal experiences. Through a fiercely individual approach and persistent experimentation with technique and materials, Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting, inspiring generations of emerging artists.
Snyder currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Woodstock, New York.