Dust Bowl: A severe dust storm swept across Oklahoma and northern Texas, removing an estimated 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairies.

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors and human-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as long as eight years. It exacerbated an already existing agricultural recession.

Black Sunday was a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl in the United States. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated that 300,000 tons of topsoil were displaced from the prairie area.

Oklahoma is a landlocked state in the South Central and Southwestern region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northeast, Arkansas to the southeast, New Mexico to the west, and Colorado to the northwest. Partially in the western extreme of the Upland South, it is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States. Its residents are known as Oklahomans and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.

Texas is the most populous state in the South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south and southwest. Texas has a coastline on the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Covering 268,596 square miles (695,660 km²) and with over 31 million residents as of 2024, it is the second-largest state by area and population. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State for its former status as an independent country, the Republic of Texas.