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The New York Times' first article on Adolf Hitler, "Hitler New Power in Germany", written in 1922 (but still paywalled), referred to fears of a St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Was that the standard way of referring to an incident of racist violence back then, before we had Kristallnacht?

Doing an NGrams search for St. Bartholomew's doesn't have a sharp drop after Kristallnacht occurred.

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  • It's probably still the main term - I'm not familiar with Kristallnacht being used in a generic sense at all.
    – curiousdannii
    Mar 3, 2016 at 10:59
  • @Andrew Grimm books.google.com/ngrams/…
    – Elian
    Mar 3, 2016 at 12:29
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    I've never read/heard Kristallnacht used metaphorically. St. Barthlomew's Day a handful of times, though.
    – Hot Licks
    Mar 3, 2016 at 12:55

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