What were the Cold War alliance blocs? What was the “Iron Curtain”?

The Western Bloc, also known as the Capitalist Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were allied with the United States, also members of NATO. Then there was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. The latter were referred to as the Eastern Bloc. The Iron Curtain formed the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991.