A year after the end of World War II, a new term emerged that described the Eastern European nations dominated by the Soviet Union. Borders of those nations were sealed, travel and communication severely restricted, and the nations were subject to censorship. The term came into popular usage after former British prime minister Winston Churchill described post-World War II Eastern Europe in a speech in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946 : "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent."