Coordinates: 48°56′19″N 2°29′26″E / 48.9386°N 2.4906°E / 48.9386; 2.4906

Aulnay-sous-Bois (French pronunciation: [ɔlnɛsubwa]) is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 13.9 km (8.6 mi) from the centre of Paris.

In October and November 2005, it gained national and international attention as one of the focuses of the French suburb riots.

The name Aulnay comes from Medieval Latin alnetum, meaning "alder grove", after the alder trees (French: aulnes) covering the territory of Aulnay-sous-Bois in ancient times.

Originally called Aulnay-lès-Bondy (meaning "Aulnay near Bondy"), the commune was renamed Aulnay-sous-Bois (meaning "Aulnay under wood") on 5 January 1903. The wood mentioned in the name is the ancient Bondy Forest which covered most of the area to the northeast of Paris.

Aulnay-sous-Bois is divided into two cantons:

According to INSEE (2004), the average household income is €15,000. Much of the upper-middle class lives in the south of the town. The canton of Aulnay-Sud has a very different character from the canton of Aulnay-Nord, owing to differences in education and wages. For example, the average income in the south of the town is around €20,000 - €25,000 (2004), much higher than the national average of €15,000 (2004). Furthermore, the north (Aulnay-Nord) has a high number of HLM (public housing). There is even a political divide, with Aulnay-Nord Canton sending a Socialist representative (Gerard Segura) to the Council-General for the Seine-Saint-Denis Department, but Aulnay-Sud a conservative (Jacques Chaussat).

Bobby Lee Rush (born November 23, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 1st congressional district, serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

The district is located principally on the South Side of Chicago. It is a minority-majority district and has a higher percentage of African Americans (65%) than any other congressional district in the nation. Rush has the distinction of being the only person to defeat President Barack Obama in an election for public office, when Obama challenged him in a primary election in 2000. Rush is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

After dropping out of high school, Rush joined the U.S. Army in 1963 but went AWOL and yet, somehow received an honorable discharge in 1968. Throughout the 1960s Rush was involved in the civil-rights movement. He worked in civil-disobedience campaigns in the South, and co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1968 and was made its "defense minister". His son, Huey, was named after Panther leader Huey Newton. "We were reacting to police brutality, to the historical relationship between African-Americans and recalcitrant racist whites," Rush later told People magazine. "We needed to arm ourselves." Rush was present when fellow Black Panther Fred Hampton was killed in a police raid and later made an official statement that the police, referred only to as "pigs" by Rush, had murdered Hampton. Rush's own apartment was raided in December 1969 where police discovered an unregistered pistol, rifle, shotgun and pistol ammunition, training manuals on explosives and booby traps, a small amount of marijuana and an assortment of communist literature. Earlier that same year Rush stated the philosophy behind his membership in the Black Panthers saying, "Black people have been on the defensive for all these years. The trend now is not to wait to be attacked. We advocate offensive violence against the power structure."

Anatole France (pronounced: [anatɔl fʁɑ̃s]) (16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924), born François-Anatole Thibault,[frɑ̃swa anatɔl tibo], was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his literary achievements.

France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

The son of a bookseller, France spent most of his life around books. His father's bookstore, called the Librairie France, specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many notable writers and scholars of the day. Anatole France studied at the Collège Stanislas, a private Catholic school, and after graduation he helped his father by working in his bookstore. After several years he secured the position of cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. In 1876 he was appointed librarian for the French Senate.

Godiva (Old English: Godgifu, "god gift"), often referred to as Lady Godiva, was an 11th century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

Lady Godiva was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. They had one proved son Aelfgar, Earl of Mercia.

Lady Godiva's name occurs in charters and the Domesday survey, though the spelling varies. The Old English name Godgifu or Godgyfu meant "gift of God"; Godiva was the Latinised version. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name.