A fumetti of the old TV series F-Troop. If you believe what you see on TV and in the movies, the Old West was a place of constant violence and turmoil.  And while there sure was plenty of that, people who want a good story tend to exaggerate.  And if you want a good story badly enough, you’re prone to being taken in by someone.  One of history’s greatest hoaxes took place in the 1870s in the out-of-the-way town of Palisades, Nevada (population 300,) tucked away in the north-central part of the state. If you were in Palisades, you were probably on your way to somewhere else. In fact, getting to somewhere else was Palisades’ main industry: it was the terminus of the Eureka & Palisade railroad, and also served as a departure point for wagon trains and stagecoaches in the region. According to legend, a railroad conductor mentioned to a Palisades resident that his passengers felt let down that the Wild West wasn’t as wild as they’d been reading in the dime nove...

What do you do when you and your spouse have gotten to where you just can’t reconcile your differences anymore?  Often this means lawyers and alimony, but if the two of you are looking to split amicably, a short trip to the county courthouse is probably enough.  Sign some papers, agree to split up the property, work out what to do with the children and the pets, and you’re done.  Divorces like this might or might not be the norm (I’m hardly an expert in that), but they are an option.  This wasn’t always the case, though. Ending a marriage simply because the two partners fell out of love or tired of each other has only been recently considered legally acceptable.  Religious institutions have long forbidden divorce (though even clergy have always been known to make exceptions), which probably has something to do with secular law also making divorce difficult, if not impossible.  Secular law has always tended to be more lenient than religious law, but even s...