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Grade 5 Social Studies · World 6: The War Turns Cold · Level 59
The Iron Curtain
Explain the term's origin and meaning.
Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.
What children learn in Level 59
- World War II ended, but peace didn't feel safe. The United States and the Soviet Union had been allies. Now they were the world's two strongest countries, and they didn't trust each other.
- Soviet armies had pushed Germany out of Eastern Europe, and they stayed. The Soviet Union set up governments it controlled in Poland, Hungary, and other countries.
- In 1946, Winston Churchill spoke at a college in Fulton, Missouri. Churchill said that an iron curtain had come down across Europe. It wasn't real iron. It meant Europe was split in two.
- West of the line, people could vote freely. East of it, people lived under governments controlled by the Soviet Union, and they could not freely leave.
- This long standoff is called the Cold War. The two big powers never fought each other directly in a big war, but they competed all over the world, for more than 40 years.
Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:
- SS5H5.a — Explain the origin and meaning of the term "Iron Curtain."