More to Explore
People and Groups
Themes
This Day in History
May 27
Cold War
SALT agreements signed, 1972
Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon, meeting in Moscow, sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements. At the…
Recommended Articles
-
Berlin Blockade
The first major Cold War crisis, the 1948 Berlin Blockade was an attempt by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of the western powers to travel to their sectors of Berlin.
-
Mikhail Gorbachev
Explore the life and legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-), a Soviet officia and general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 to 1991.
-
Red Scare
Growing out of the Cold War of the late 1940s and 1950s, the Red Scare resulted in a wide-ranging effort to investigate and eliminate communist influence in the United States.
-
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference called for Germany's unconditional surrender at the end of World War II.
the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. The term Iron Curtain had been in occasional and varied use as a metaphor since the 19th century, but it came to prominence only after it was used by the former British prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, U.S., on March 5, 1946, when he said of the communist states, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
The restrictions and the rigidity of the Iron Curtain were somewhat reduced in the years following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, although the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 restored them. The Iron Curtain largely ceased to exist in 1989–90 with the communists' abandonment of one-party rule in eastern Europe.
Copyright © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.
Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!
Shop HISTORY
-
The Berlin Wall DVD
It surrounded the free city of West Berlin, but it symbolized a prison for those on the outside.
$20.99
Buy Now -
The Doomsday Clock
Learn the history of the clock - developed in 1947 as an image to symbolize urgency in the Cold War and the threat of nuclear disaster.
$19.99
Buy Now -
Swamp People Troy Bobblehead
If the "King of the Swamp" is your favorite of all the swamp people, say so with the Swamp People Troy Bobblehead!
$26.95
Buy Now
Email Updates
Keep up with the latest History shows, online features, special offers and more.
Sign up
