British Prime Minister Winston Churchill led Britain to victory during the Second World War. His strong leadership is credited with keeping up the morale of a nation at a time when Britain faced the might of the Nazi military machine. At the end of the war, it began to emerge that the Soviet Union was not a true ally.

Tensions began to surface when the leaders met at Potsdam to decide the future of Europe's borders. Halfway through the Potsdam Conference, Churchill lost the British General Election to Clement Atlee and made a swift exit from Potsdam.

On 5 March 1946, Churchill made a speech in the USA in which he coined the famous term 'The Iron Curtain', saying "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent". At this time, the Iron Curtain was a psychological and ideological barrier rather than a physical one.

Later, in 1961, the Berlin Wall was built, becoming physical evidence of the barrier between East and West.