As it happened: Australia embarrassed as records tumbleClarke dejected as England leave Australia reelingAnalysis: rampant England deliver Australia's blackest daySocial media reaction to Australia collapse
"Is this Australia's most humiliating day in an Ashes series?"
While it was officially a question from former England captain Michael Vaughan to BBC Radio's statistician, his tone confirmed he thought it a rhetorical question.
Vaughan's musing was prompted by the events of day one at Trent Bridge. Australia's hopes of winning the Test to keep their Ashes series hopes alive are in tatters after England emerged from the first day in a mighty position, leading by 214 and still with six wickets in hand and with Joe Root on his own more than doubling Australia's score.
The effect of the visitors' capitulation in 18.3 overs, the shortest first innings of a Test in history, for 60 was compounded by the response of England. Their score of 4-274 was a truer reflection of the pitch in Nottingham than what had been produced earlier by the Australians, whose top-scorer was, humiliatingly, extras with 14. 
Only twice in Test history has a team that bowled first in a Test emerged from day one with a bigger lead: South Africa with 286 against Zimbabwe in 2005 and England 233 against Australia in 1896.
The key reason Australia were bowled out for such a paltry score was the performance of Stuart Broad, who stepped up to his role of lead English paceman with incredible effect. He finished with 8-15 in front of his home crowd. Only twice in Test history has anyone taken eight wickets for fewer runs.
With Australia boasting only four genuine bowling options - all-rounder Mitch Marsh was dropped in favour of brother Shaun, in the hope of stiffening their batting order - their fast-bowling attack of Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Mitch Johnson were made to toil in warm conditions, bowling 53 overs between them. Even David Warner was used, without effect, as Australia captain Michael Clarke strived to break the century partnership between Root and Jonny Bairstow.
Starc was, as per usual, expensive but produced enough "wicket balls" to show why he was retained ahead of the more steady Peter Siddle. The left-armer removed each of England's top-three, including Alastair Cook for 43 after an innings in which he looked on track to break his four-and-a-half-year century drought against Australia.
The home team's most assured batsman was, again, Root. The right-hander was ruthless when a delivery warranted dispatching, but restrained when the Australian bowlers were on target.
Root underlined his class by finishing day one unbeaten on 124. He will start day two with nightwatchman Mark Wood beside him on 2, after Bairstow departed late in the day for 74 to end their commanding 173-run partnership.
Australia came into the Test needing to make history as the first team in almost 80 years to overturn a 1:2 Ashes deficit. Within one session they made history - for the wrong reasons.
While pitch and weather conditions were helpful for fast-bowling it was nevertheless unfathomable, even given Australia's capitulation last week at Edgbaston, that their innings could be so brief. It left Australia with the sobering reality that their past two first innings have lasted for a combined 55.1 overs, barely more than a one-day innings.
In the first 37 balls of the match they shed all six of their specialist batsmen amid an onslaught from Broad that saw him snare 5-6 within his first overs with the new ball, which he usually shares behind Jimmy Anderson, who was sidelined due to injury.
After the first ball of Broad's third over, and the fifth of the match in Nottingham, Australia was at a calamitous 5-23. It raised memories of Cape Town in late 2011, when Australia was stricken at 5-18 on the way to being bowled out for 47 by South Africa. It was a close-run thing as to whether Australia beat that total here. They only managed to do so when the last pair of Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon were at the crease.
The only specialist batsman to survive the shedding of the first five wickets was captain Clarke, but only after he came close to being dismissed from his first two scoring deliveries, almost playing on to his stumps and then almost caught from a top-edged hook.
Clarke's entry to the crease was helped by exclusively facing Wood for his first 14 deliveries. When he finally faced destroyer Broad he attempted to assert his authority over him from his first delivery, but produced only a loose attempt at driving that gave an edge that was gratefully accepted by his England counterpart, Cook.
That he was the only top-six batsman to reach double-figures might be deserving of qualified praise in the circumstances, if not for the way he departed.
Only four times in Australia's Test history have they shed their top six more cheaply than they did in Nottingham. One was in Cape Town, the other three were in the 19th century.
A repercussion of swapping the Marsh brothers was that left-hander Shaun was slotted in at No.4, allowing Clarke to move to his more-favoured No.5 and Adam Voges to No.6. The shuffle was of no benefit and was instead more akin to moving deckchairs on a sinking vessel.
Even though England was without their lead paceman, Anderson, for just the third time in the past eight years in a home Test, captain Cook had sufficient confidence in his remaining seamers to bowl first when given the opportunity.
If Clarke thought the move down one in the batting order, to where his average of 61.83 is almost double his record at No.4, would lead to a softer entry to the crease he was sadly mistaken; he was called up just eight balls into the match when David Warner became Australia's third victim.
Australia lost two batsmen, Chris Rogers and Steve Smith, within the first over. Rogers' departure, snared at first slip by Cook, vindicated Broad's decision to immediately attack the left-hander from around the wicket - and meant he only needed three deliveries to reach his 300 Test wickets milestone. Smith sought to strike back by scoring from his first two deliveries, one of them a boundary through extra-cover, yet fell to his third after providing Root with a catch at first slip.
Wood gave an early vindication of his selection as Anderson's replacement by having Warner inside-edge behind to Jos Buttler, consigning both openers to ducks.
For most batsmen, getting a "start" involves getting to 20 or 30. For Shaun Marsh it involves getting off the mark. A quarter of his Test dismissals have been for a duck. Within the first half-hour in Nottingham it was seven of 25 dismissals as he wafted outside off-stump to Broad and gave a catch to Ian Bell at second slip.
If you needed any more indication of just how emboldened England were by their start it came courtesy of Ben Stokes' dazzling catch to remove Voges for 1. While the stroke was too aggressive in the circumstances, that did not detract from the skill required by Stokes to propel himself to his right from gully to snare the one-handed catch. Bowler Broad could hardly believe what he had seen.
When Peter Nevill became Australia's seventh victim just before drinks, comprehensively bowled between bat and pad by Steve Finn for two, it left the visitors at 7-33 in just the 10th over, requiring the bowlers to lessen the ignominy of the batsmen above them.
From 7-38 at drinks Australia lost their most capable lower-order batsmen, Johnson and Starc, within two overs. Their last pair, Hazlewood and Lyon, produced the longest partnership of the innings: 33 balls.
Australia needed to win at Trent Bridge to maintain any chance of securing their first away series since 2001. With such a limp effort with the bat in their "grand final" it was explicable why they were on track to lose their fourth consecutive series in England.