From Staff Report

Pea Ridge National Military Park hosts "America Invaded" book signing.

Have you ever wondered why some towns in Texas have French names? Or why there's a statue of a Shawnee chief at the U.S. Naval Academy? Or what coastal wildlife refuges have to do with American fears of invasion? And what the Olive Oil Riot in Montana was really all about?

"American Invaded: A State by State Guide to Fighting on American Soil" by Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock (History Invasions Press, August 2017) has the answers to these intriguing questions, and many more.

Author Christopher Kelly will be at Pea Ridge National Military Park at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, to sign the new book. In "America Invaded," Kelly and Laycock provide a snapshot of the waves of invasion -- qualified as episodes of fighting on U.S. soil -- that have touched all fifty American states and Washington, D.C. Drawing on years of meticulous research including a drive through 36 states, they chronicle some of the many explorations and invasions that founded or destroyed towns, that set and reset state lines, and that shaped the peoples and culture of this nation.

Readers will learn how:

• Czarist Russia invaded California

• Confederates invaded Vermont from Canada during the Civil War

• Also during the Civil War, Union troops clashed with Copperheads (Democrats who opposed the war) in Charleston, Illinois

• Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, shelled the California coast, and bombed the forests of Oregon in World War II

• Japanese balloon bombs rained down on at least 15 western states during World War II, including Colorado, Washington, California, Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa

• Six Americans and more than one hundred and twenty Mexicans were killed in a border skirmish known as the Battle of Ambos Nogales in Arizona in 1918

Books will be available for purchase and signing. For information, please call (479) 451-8122, ext. 1227.

This event is sponsored by Eastern National. Eastern National is a 503(c)3 not-for-profit cooperating association, supporting the interpretive, educational, and scientific programs and services of the National Park Service and other public trust partners.