The Night of the Long Knives (German:  Nacht der langen Messer ), sometimes called Operation Hummingbird or in Germany, the Röhm Putsch (German spelling: Röhm-Putsch) or sometimes mockingly Reichsmordwoche (Reich's murder week), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political extra-judicial executions. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were killed, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). Many of those killed were leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary Brownshirts.

Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. Hitler also wanted to conciliate leaders of the Reichswehr, the official German military who feared and despised the SA—in particular Röhm's ambition to absorb the Reichswehr into the SA under his own leadership. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth (in Röhm's view, President Hindenburg's appointing of Hitler as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933 had accomplished the "nationalistic" revolution but had left unfulfilled the "socialistic" motive in National Socialism). Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies.

Patriation was the political process that led to Canadian sovereignty, culminating in 1982. Until that date, Canada was governed by a constitution composed of British laws that could be changed only by acts of the British parliament, albeit only with the consent of the Canadian government. The patriation process saw the provinces granted influence in constitutional matters and resulted in the constitution being amendable by Canada only and according to the Canadian amending formula, with no role for the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Hence, patriation is associated with the acquisition of full sovereignty.

Etymology

The word patriation was coined in Canada as a back-formation from repatriation (returning to one's country). As the Canadian constitution was originally a British law, it could not return to Canada. The term was first used in 1966 by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in response to a question in parliament: "We intend to do everything we can to have the constitution of Canada repatriated, or patriated."

In Arthurian legend, the Treachery of the Long Knives was the apocryphal treacherous killing of native British chieftains by Anglo-Saxon mercenaries on Salisbury Plain in the 5th century. The event was named Brad y Cyllyll Hirion ("The Treachery of the Long Knives") in Welsh, and became a prominent symbol of Saxon treachery.

Legendary context

According to the tradition, Vortigern, who had become the high king of the Britons in the wake of the end of Roman rule in Britain, allowed Anglo-Saxons under Hengist and Horsa to settle on the Isle of Thanet. He offered them additional provisions in exchange for their service as mercenaries against incursions by Picts and Gaels. The settlers, however, manipulated Vortigern into allowing them to increase their numbers and granting them more land, eventually including all of the Kingdom of Kent.

Historia Brittonum

There is no specific account of this event in the 6th-century writings of Gildas. The story is known from the Historia Brittonum, attributed to the Welsh historian Nennius, which was a compilation in Latin of various older materials (some of which were historical and others mythic or legendary) put together during the early 9th century, and surviving in 9th-century manuscripts – i.e., some 400 years after the supposed events. According to John Morris's textual analysis of the Historia, this tale derived from a north Welsh narrative which was mainly about Emrys (Ambrosius Aurelianus), which the compiler of the Historia incorporated into a framework drawn from a Kentish chronicle, together with details from a Life of Saint Germanus.

Long knives or big knives was a term used by the Iroquois (Mingo) and later by American Indians of the Ohio Country to designate British colonists of Virginia, in contradistinction to those of New York and Pennsylvania.

It is a literal translation of the treaty name that the Iroquois first bestowed on Virginia Governor Lord Howard in 1684, Assarigoe (variously spelled Assaregoa, Assaragoa, Asharigoua), meaning "cutlass" in Onondaga. This word was chosen as a pun on Howard's name, which sounds like Dutch hower meaning "cutlass" (similar to the Iroquois' choice of the name Onas, or quill pen, for the Pennsylvania Governors, beginning with William Penn.)

The name "long knives" is also thought to refer to the swords carried by colonial military officers.

George Rogers Clark spoke of himself and men as "Big Knives" or Virginians, in his speeches to the Indians in 1778 after the capture of Illinois. In the latter part of the American Revolutionary War, down to and during the War of 1812, the term was used to designate `Americans`.