USS Oklahoma (BB-37) was a Nevada-class battleship built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation for the United States Navy, notable for being the first American class of oil-burning dreadnoughts. Commissioned in 1916, the ship served in World War I as a part of Battleship Division Six, protecting Allied convoys on their way across the Atlantic. After the war, she served in both the United States Battle Fleet and Scouting Fleet. Oklahoma was modernized between 1927 and 1929. In 1936, she rescued American citizens and refugees from the Spanish Civil War. On returning to the West Coast in August of the same year, Oklahoma spent the rest of her service in the Pacific.

The Nevada class comprised two dreadnought battleships—Nevada and Oklahoma—built for the United States Navy in the 1910s. They were significant developments in battleship design, being the first in the world to adopt "all or nothing" armor, a major step forward in armor protection because it emphasized protection optimized for long-range engagements before the Battle of Jutland demonstrated the need for such a layout. They also introduced three-gun turrets and oil-fired water-tube boilers to the US fleet. The two Nevadas were the progenitors of the standard-type battleship, a group that included the next four classes of broadly similar battleships that were intended to be tactically homogeneous.