“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” Momentous words, delivered by Winston Churchill at a momentous point in history. From the ashes of defeated Germany rose a new, more menacing power of the Soviet Union. The Red Army took tremendous losses during the second world war, but the USSR’s sheer size and resources made it the de facto power in the European continent. And with every imminent threat to them erased, they no longer saw any need for cooperation with the West.

On this day, March 5, in 1946, Winston Churchill went before an assembled crowd at Westminster College in Fulton. He noted America stood as the world power, and called for a great cooperation between the two countries, to offset the encroaching tide of communism.

Churchill’s “iron curtain” referenced the clampdown the Soviets imposed over their territories. Western-controlled West Germany was separated by a wall of military from East Germany; and the capital of Berlin, itself in the Russian portion, was likewise divided in to east and west. The Soviets allowed little freedoms to residents in its occupied territories, and they strictly forbade, under the threat of severe punishment, any interactions with the West.