Winston Churchill giving the “Iron Curtain Speech” at Westminster College

President Truman used his influence to bring Winston Churchill to his home state in 1946. The former British prime minister gave a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, that popularized the phrase “iron curtain.” Churchill used the term to describe the growing rift between the Soviet Union and the free world. Many historians see this period as the beginning of the Cold War, a state of political tension and military rivalry between nations that stops short of full-scale war. The primary nations involved in the Cold War were the United States and the Soviet Union.

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