Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton
- Date
- 5 March 1946
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Europe / North America (United States)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
Speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered an address officially titled "The Sinews of Peace." In it he warned that "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent," describing the division of Europe between Soviet-dominated Eastern states and the democratic West.
Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition and speaking as a private citizen with President Harry Truman in attendance, called for a close Anglo-American partnership to resist Soviet expansion. Although the metaphor of an "iron curtain" predated the speech, Churchill's address popularised it and crystallised Western public perception of an emerging East-West confrontation. The speech is widely regarded as a rhetorical milestone marking the onset of the Cold War, hardening attitudes on both sides and foreshadowing the policy of containment that would shape Western strategy for decades.
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Empires active in 5 March 1946
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Independence and Partition of British India14–15 August 1947
- Establishment of Apartheid in South Africa1948
- Founding of the People's Republic of China1 October 1949
- Construction of the Berlin Wall13 August 1961
- Iranian RevolutionJanuary–February 1979
- Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
Further reading
The wider story
The Americas: A Hemispheric History
Brisk single-volume history of the whole hemisphere since European contact.
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