Salon Kitty was a high-class Berlin brothel used by the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), for espionage purposes during World War II.

Created in the early 1930s, the salon was taken over by SS general Reinhard Heydrich and his subordinate Walter Schellenberg in 1939. The brothel was managed by original owner Kitty Schmidt throughout its entire existence. The plan was to seduce top German dignitaries and foreign visitors, as well as diplomats, with alcohol and women so they would disclose secrets or express their honest opinions on Nazi-related topics and individuals. Notable guests included Heydrich himself, Joseph Dietrich, Galeazzo Ciano and Joseph Goebbels. The building housing the salon was destroyed in an air raid in 1942 and the project quickly lost its importance. Salon Kitty has been the inspiration or subject to many brothels featured in films involving Nazi espionage. (read more ...)

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Andrêsa do Nascimento (1859–1927) was a courtesan and celebrated society figure in fin de siècle Lisbon. She was better known as Preta Fernanda (literally: Black Fernanda) and Fernanda do Vale (her nom de plume). She was, perhaps, the best known black citizen of the city in that period.

Nascimento was born to poor parents in a small village near Ribeira da Barca on the island of Santiago in Cape Verde, probably in 1859. Cape Verde, a volcanic archipelago off the west coast of Africa, was a Portuguese colony and a nexus for the Atlantic slave trade. Although slavery was abolished in Portugal, it was only selectively abolished in Cape Verde in 1857 with complete abolition in 1878. It is possible, therefore, that one or both of Nascimento's parents were enslaved when she was born or had been enslaved. (read more...)

• ... that Rossetti's Found, a painting about prostitution, featured a white calf (detail pictured)?
• ... that Hacienda Arms on the Sunset Strip was the "most famous brothel in California" in the 1930s and now houses a celebrity-owned restaurant described by Newsweek as "so hip it hurts"?
• ... that the Louisiana sheriff Cat Doucet of St. Landry Parish apparently obtained his nickname from his practice of protecting illegal "cathouses," a slang term for brothels?
• ... that the original screenplay for A Life of Her Own was deemed "shocking and highly offensive" for its portrayal of "adultery and commercialized prostitution" and rejected by the Breen Office?