Causes

To help you learn about the causes of the Cold War, complete the following activity on the BBC website. Make sure you watch the video carefully, because after each section there is a short quiz!

As the activity you completed talked about, Winston Churchill's famous speech the 'Iron Curtain', as well as the initiation of the 'Marshall Plan', were two incidences that helped fuel the onset of the Cold War.

The Iron Curtain

Given on March 5th, 1946, the speech highlights the conflicting ideological views of the west and the east. The speech fuelled the Cold War tension that was emerging between communist and non - communist countries at the time. Below is a short YouTube video that shows a small excerpt of the speech.

To read a full transcript of the speech, click here

The Marshall Plan

Created by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Marshall Plan was created to help the war-torn nations of Eastern Euope make it through the economic crisis and food famine after the wake of WWII. Below is a short YouTube video that outlines the main ideas of the Marshall Plan.

To learn more about the Marshall plan, and read a part of the original document, click here

Question:

What were the political, ideological and economic reasons that helped cause the Cold War? Some of the answers you would have learnt from the quiz, however you may also need to do some additional web research