Prostitute guidebooks flourished in Renaissance Venice, Georgian London, belle époque Paris -- and early 1900s Kansas City. What can historians learn from studying their well-thumbed pages?

Who invented the term, "to get laid"? New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott reveals this and other lurid secrets of US history -- including the most luxurious brothel of the Gilded Age, the birth of burlesque in Depression-era New York and the sordid Prohibition sex-murder scandal that inspired "The Great Gatsby."

An introduction to the series about unearthing sexual secrets from throughout the ages.