What speech did Joseph McCarthy make and how did it kick off the red scare?

Joseph McCarthy delivered a pivotal speech on February 9, 1950, at a Republican women's club in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he claimed to have a list of 205 communists working within the U.S. State Department. This unfounded allegation ignited widespread fear of communist infiltration in the government and society, leading to a period of intense anti-communist sentiment known as the Red Scare. McCarthy's tactics of making unsubstantiated accusations and creating a climate of paranoia fueled investigations and blacklisting, significantly impacting American politics and civil liberties during the early Cold War era.