From Iron Curtain to Fallen Wall
October 3 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm CDT
Experience the remarkable story behind the Berlin Wall through the words of the man who first warned the world it was coming. In this richly illustrated lecture, Timothy Riley, the Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator of America’s National Churchill Museum, explores the direct connection between Winston Churchill’s historic 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in nearby Fulton, Missouri, and the Berlin Wall now on display in Union Station’s Berlin Wall – A World Divided exhibition. Featuring powerful images, compelling stories, and fascinating historical insights, the lecture follows the Cold War from Churchill’s prophetic warning to the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Discover how a speech delivered just 100 miles from Kansas City helped define one of the twentieth century’s greatest global struggles and why the Wall standing at Union Station remains one of history’s most enduring symbols of the triumph of freedom over tyranny.
ESU members and guests are invited to this lecture at the Union Station.
When: Saturday, October 3, 2026 at 10:00 AM
Where: Union Station, Kansas City, MO. Arthur Stilwell Room, C-level
Tickets: $10 lecture. Click here to purchase ticket
About Timothy Riley
Timothy Riley has been serving as Director and Chief Curator of the America’s National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, MO since 2016.
Tim is a graduate, cum laude, from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin followed by post-graduate study at Columbia University in New York City. He served in a variety of curatorial and educational roles at The Cloisters, a part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From 2006 to 2010 Mr. Riley served as director of The Trout Museum of Art in Appleton and was appointed Director Emeritus in 2012. HE was inducted into the Association of Churchill Fellows of Westminster College in 2016.
Tim is the author or co-author of more than 20 articles on a variety of art, music and historical topics, including several essays about Winston Churchill.
He curated an exhibition titled, “A Passion for Painting: The Art of Sir Winston Churchill aboard the Queen Mary” in Long Beach, California and his exhibition in 2016, “The Paintings of Sir Winston Churchill,” was hailed as “the most significant exhibition of Churchill’s paintings in North America.”
The ESU Kansas Branch has collaborated with Tim and the Churchill Museum on a number of occasions including a lecture program on “The Art of Winston Churchill” and Tim generously assisted with a video about the Winston and Clementine Churchill Statue here in Kansas City as part of our 100 Years, 100 Stories Centennial Celebrations.