Advance ticket sales on both sides of the Atlantic have obliterated previous records, leading to speculation that Abrams' film might challenge Avatar for the mantle of highest-grossing movie of all time.
Gonzalez has obliterated school records, ranks at the top in California in scoring average and three-pointers made and has put up eye-popping offensive numbers.
January and February obliterated global temperature records, and nowhere more so than in the Arctic which saw some locations 16C (29F) warmer than normal.
He not only obliterated Van der Burgh's record by half a second but he became the first man to dip under 58 seconds for the event.
Drake is upset about a lot of things on his new album, Scorpion, but commercial performance isn't one of them: The album obliterated first-day streaming records on Spotify and Apple Music and is on its way to logging the best streaming week of all time.
As he swept into the final 25 metres, his own world record about to obliterated, even the illustrious, sepia-tinted ghosts of Adrian Moorhouse, Duncan Goodhew and David Wilkie were left trailing in his wake.
They even had ladders brought and his shields and images torn down before their eyes and dashed upon the ground; finally they passed a decree that his inscriptions should everywhere be erased, and all record of him obliterated". There are relatively few portraits of Nero, the consequence of his having been "pronounced a public enemy by the senate" (Suetonius, XLIX.2).
Despite Dreamcast's advanced technology and record-setting introduction in September 1999 -- it sold 500,000 units in that month alone -- Sony's PlayStation 2 this year broke that record and all but obliterated Dreamcast's lead.
There is something moving about seeing such ancient footage, like the experience of hearing Alfred Tennyson speak into a recording machine, his dim and almost obliterated voice only just reaching us through the shrouding layers of time.
(The population was duly obliterated).
