probably a majority of the RS use 1947 eg Walker The Cold War A History p36 British author Klein Cold War Orientalism p 22 The A to Z of the Cold War 2005 p 238 Hogan A Cross of Iron p12 but other sdates are sometimes given such as 1946 Ross Gregory Cold War America 1946 To 1990 in 2nd place is the year 1946 esp Churchill s Iron Curtain speech as in Bodden The Cold War 1948 is a late datesee Salmon The Rise and Fall of Corporate America Page 214 Russians like to use 1917 18 as the start I don t see any major historian using 1945 as the start see Nargele Endless Cold War Page 1