March 16, 1940

1940Vagif Mustafazadeh, Azerbaijani pianist and composer (died 1979)^[†]

Vagif Mustafazadeh, also known as Vaqif Mustafa-Zadeh, was a Soviet-Azerbaijani jazz pianist and composer, acclaimed for fusing jazz and the traditional Azerbaijani folk music, known as mugham. According to many world famous jazz musicians, Mustafazadeh is one of the pioneers and "the architect of jazz in Azerbaijan".

1940Jan Pronk, Dutch academic and politician, Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment^[†]

Johannes Pieter "Jan" Pronk Jr. is a retired Dutch politician and diplomat of the Labour Party (PvdA) and activist.

1940Keith Rowe, English guitarist^[†]

Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, his paintings have appeared on most of his albums. He is seen as a godfather of EAI, with many of his recordings having been released by Erstwhile.

1940Kaak, Indian cartoonist (died 2025)^[†]

Harish Chandra Shukla, known by his pen name Kaak, was an Indian editorial cartoonist and caricaturist who worked in Hindi-language media. He worked with leading newspapers such as Jansatta, Navbharat Times, Dainik Jagran, Rajasthan Patrika, and a few others, in a career spanning several decades. 'Kaak' means crow in Hindi, which according to a proverb, is the bird that raises its raucous voice when someone tells a lie.

1940Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1858)^[†]

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish writer. 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. In 1914, she was the first woman to be granted a membership of the Swedish Academy.