Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech

In March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He described “an iron curtain [that] has descended across the continent,” dividing Europe into two spheres: one under Soviet influence and the other under Western influence. Churchill’s speech was an early acknowledgement of the divisions emerging between the Allies and the extent to which those divisions would shape the postwar era.