Final answer:
The term 'Iron Curtain' was coined by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the division of Europe into communist-dominated East and democratically influenced West during the Cold War.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term Iron Curtain was created by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the year 1946. Churchill used this term during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. The Iron Curtain symbolizes the ideological and physical boundary that separated the Soviet-controlled countries of Eastern Europe from the democratic countries of Western Europe during the Cold War era.
In his speech, Churchill described the descent of the Iron Curtain as a barrier erected by the Soviet Union to not just keep people in but also to assert its power and control over Eastern Europe, restricting freedom and preventing open contact with the West. This division served as a potent symbol of the geopolitical and ideological conflict between the communist and capitalistic states that defined the Cold War period, which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The imagery presented by the term Iron Curtain suggests not only a division but also an implication of something menacing and authoritarian on the side under Soviet influence, as opposed to a sense of freedom and democracy on the other side. It became an enduring metaphor for the separation between East and West and the lack of freedom in the Eastern Bloc.