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  • Writer's pictureProfessor Floros
    • Feb 25

2023.07: Happy Birthday, UIC Radio!

Updated: Mar 2


Message written on a baby blue background in black letters: "Happy 23rd Birthday, UIC Radio!!! 23 events, 23 years, 2000-2023". It also includes the UIC Radio logo with is the name "UIC Radio" in navy blue, with white and red outline, on a black background.
Episode Transcript

UIC Radio

Events from 2000-2022

2000: Bush v. Gore


White, balding man with a salt and pepper comb-over looks cross-eyed at a white ballot with multiple holes in it. His forehead is wrinkled in confusion. His eyes are crossed and bugged out, and he is scratching just outside his right eye. He is wearing a pink and white narrow striped long-sleeved button-up shirt and a wristwatch with a black band.
Broward County canvassing board member Judge Robert Rosenberg looked over a questionable ballot at the Broward County Courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale in November 2000. RHONA WISE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A white piece of paper with many rectangular punched in it, including 4 where the paper did not completely disengage from the paper.
A Florida ballot with four hanging chads, which was considered an overvote. Dwight Eschliman for TIME

2001: Terrorist attacks on 9/11


Dark black smoke rises for a large grey skyscraper while an airplane flies toward a second tall grey skyscraper. The sky is clear and blue behind the smoke.
Right before the second plane hit, September 11, 2001. Carmen Taylor/AP Images


2002: Debut of Euro currency


A round coin that is gold-colored around the edges and silver inside, with the number "1" and a map of Western Europe with the word "EURO" stamped on it, with 12 stars stamped into the gold-colored border, sits on colorful paper money. The 20 Euro note is light blue with dark blue lettering, the 10 Euro note is pinkish-brown, with lettering in a darker shade of pinkish-brown, and the 5 Euro note is light green with lettering in darker green.
Euro coins and paper money became available on Jan. 1, 2022

2003: Invasion of Iraq


White man with greying hair and a widow's peak wearing a khaki green flight suit with many buttons and a gray oxygen mask. He warries a two-toned helmet under his left arm. He has a small smirk on his mouth. Behind him is another white man, younger and thinner, wearing a helmet, goggles, and earmuffs.
Bush arrives on an aircraft carrier to announce the end of combat operations in Iraq, May 1, 2002. Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS

White man in a dark suit and red tie looks to the right as he stands behind a podium, giving the thumbs-up signal to someone off to his right. In the foreground are white hands raised and clapping. In the background are US service personnel in uniforms of many colors, including blue, red, yellow, and green. Hanging far behind the man is a large banner with "Mission Accomplished" emblazoned over an American flag.
President Bush greets service members with a thumbs-up in advance of his "Mission Accomplished" speech, May 1, 2003. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo


2004: Indian Ocean Tsunami


Ariel view of a few houses with red roofs standing amid utter devastation of many houses flattened. A cluttered waterway cuts through the middle of the phot, leading out to the ocean, while many areas of the town remain underwater.
Banda Aceh on Jan. 5, 2005 after being devastated by the tsunami that struck on Dec. 26, 2004. Choo Youn-Kong/AFP/Getty Images

2005: Hurricane Katrina


Ariel view of white water rushing through a break in the levee. The city beyond is submerged under water and only trees are visible above the waterline.
Water pouring over a broken levee in New Orleans on Aug. 30, 2005, the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. AFP/Getty Image


2006: North Korean Nuclear Test


Grey map with red boxes and black lettering of the region of North Korea where tremor was detected and tunnels are suspected of housing North Korea's nuclear program. In relief is a map of the North Korea with the area of detail marked in red.
Location of where a tremor was recorded on Monday, Oct. 9, 2006. New York Times

2007: Release of the iPhone


White man's hand holding a small cell phone with a black background and multiple colorful buttons in four rows of four on the screen.
Original iPhone, released June 29, 2007. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

2008: Barack Obama Elected US' First Black President


A Black family, including a man, a woman, and two girls, wave to a crowd waving American flags. He is wearing a dark suit with a red and white stripped tie; the woman is wearing a black and red dress; the taller girl is wearing a red dress and holds the woman's hand, and the shorter girl is wearing a black dress and holding the man's hand. The man and both girls are waving at the crowd. All four are smiling broadly.
President-elect Obama; his wife, Michelle; and their daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, arrive on stage during his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008. Wilmington StarNews

Map of the United States with the states won by Obama in blue and those won by McCain in red. Each state includes its name or abbreviation and the number of electoral votes it has. Two pie charts compare the percentage of the popular vote for each candidate and the percentage of the popular vote for each candidate.
2008 Electoral College. GISGeography.

2009: Sonia Sotomayor Becomes a Supreme Court Justice


A black-haired Latinx woman in a white suit and gold bracelets on each wrist stands with her right hand raised and her left hand on a Bible being held by an older, white-haired Latinx woman in a taupe suit. Behind the women is a balding Latino man in a dark suit and a brown paisley tie with his left hand on the older woman's back. On the right, a dark-haired man with a bald spot, wearing a black robe with a white collar sticking out, raises his right hand and holds a piece of paper in his left hand.
Sonia Sotomayor (left) is accompanied by her brother, Juan Luis Sotomayor, and her mother, Celina Sotomayor, as she takes the oath from Chief Justice John Roberts to become a Supreme Court justice in Washington, Aug. 8, 2009. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

2010: Earthquake in Haiti


Ariel view of three rows of damaged buildings, intersected by roads. Debris spills into the street.
Downtown Port au Prince the day after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. UN Photo/Logan Abassi United Nations Development Programme

2011: Arab Spring


Large white building with a painting in black of a man looking to the right. His face takes up the entire side of the building. A red flag with a red crescent and star in a white circle waves below the picture.
A portrain of Mohamed Bouazizi in his home town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Bouazizi's self-immolation sparked the protests that grew into the Arab Spring. Ons Abid/Guardian
Map of the Middle East and North Africa with each country a color that corresponds to their political situation after the Arab Spring. Libya, Syria, and Yemen are red (civil war), Tunisia is blue (democracy), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Oman are yellow (full autocracy), and Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, and the Palestinian Territories are green (autocracy/restricted democracy). There are also circles with numbers inside for each country which mark their population in 2011.

  • Tunisia

  • Looking back on the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, 10 years later (The Guardian)

  • New President (since 2019) suspended Parliament and is ruling by decree


2012: Washington State and Colorado Legalize Recreational Marijuana


Map of the United States with states colored based on the status of marijuana, with dark green states (legal medical and recreational use), yellow states (medical use), and grey states (illegal).
Legal situation as of Jan. 1, 2023.

2013: Boston Marathon Bombing


Ariel view of sidewalk littered with debris. A viewing platform littered with broken wooden furniture. Large blood stains on sidewalk and viewing platform.
Aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, April 15, 2013. Bruce Mendelsoh / AP

2014: Russian Annexation of Crimea


Cartoon of a bald man in a pink shirt with the Ukrainian flag on the back and brown pants holding a red pencil as he looks at his choices on a referendum ballot. The choices are that Crimea belongs to Russia or that Crimea does not belong to Ukraine. Off to the man's right, a soldier in a green uniform points a rifle at the man, who is frowning.
Choice in referendum on the future of Crimea, March 16, 2014

2015: Obergefell v. Hodges


The White House at night with the American flag flying above. It's lit in rainbow-colored lights (red, orange, yellow green, blue, purple)
Rainbow-colored lights illuminated the White House in honor of the same-sex marriage. Zach Gibson/The New York Times

2016: Donald Trump Elected US President


White man with orange comb-over hair, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red tie with an American flag pin on his left lapel. He looks down and to the right while giving a thumbs-up sign with his right hand. There are several American flags behind him with yellow tassles.
Republican presidential elect Donald Trump gestures while speaking during election night at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York on Nov. 9, 2016. JIM WATSON / AFP - Getty Images

Map of the United States with states that supported Hillary Clinton in blue and states that supported Donald Trump in red.
2016 Presidential election map via Vox

2017: Over Half of Americans Listen to Podcasts


The back of a Black man with short, curly black hair, a curly black beard visible. He's wearing over-the-ear black headphones a brownish-red sweater with a white shirt peaking out at the collar.
In 2017, over half of Americans listened to podcasts. Matt Dutile/Getty Images

  • Of course, I can't recreate the search I conducted to create my list (and didn't save the tabs - lesson learned), so I can't find a good source for this entry. Of course, I found a lot of sites that suggest that fewer than half of Americans listen to podcasts. However, just so you know that I didn't completely make this up, here is a site I found that backs up this claim, though I'm not going to buy the videos to check their sources.

  • Podcast listeners are "intellectually curious" and "less neurotic" than social media users.



2018: Turkey Invades Northern Syria


Men with dark hair and beards in green camouflage uniforms stand and sit on a camouflaged tank waving a Turkish flag (white crescent and star on red background). The man standing in front of the tank points his machine gun toward the sky. There is a building with a white town on the right side of the picture.
Turkish soldiers and Ankara-backed Syrian Arab fighters pose for a group photo in the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin in northwestern Syria after seizing control of it on March 18, 2018. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images)

  • Foreign Policy analysis of the challenge for Turkey after taking control of Afrin in Syria.


2019: Protests in Hong Kong


In the blurry foreground, a skinny white arm with fist clenched. Below, a massive crowd of people, dressed mostly in black, carrying signs. I red umbrella is visible in the crowd, just to the left of the outstretched arm.
A protester clenches his fist as hundreds of thousands of people march on the streets to stage a protest against the unpopular extradition bill in Hong Kong on June 16, 2019. Vincent Yu / AP

2020: Murder of George Floyd


A man with a black beard and frosted tips, wearing a white t-shirt, black jeans, and white sneakers looks to his left at a mural of George Floyd. Mr. Floyd is depicted as a Black man wearing a black hoodie, with red tape across his mouth with the words, "I can't breathe." There is white solidarity fist rising from the bottom of the mural. A light blue circle around Mr. Floyd's head suggests a halo with a white ring around the outside of the halo. There are several hashtags around Mr. Floyd, including #freedom, #unity, #peace, #change, #Black Lives Matter on the left of the photo and #pray, #love, #justice, #all lives matter, #hope, #faith on the right side of the photo.
A mural in Los Angeles depicts George Floyd. Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP

  • NPR story about George Floyd's death being ruled a homicide.


2021: Insurrection at the US Capitol


A large American flag waves in the foreground while a crowd, one holding a Trump 2020 sign watch 5 men scale a grey concrete wall leading up to the capital. Two of them wear a red MAGA hat. On the balcony above, other men raise their arms in the air in celebration.
Rioters scale a wall at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Trump's Second Impeachment


Capitol Breach Cases, including current status and information on convictions and sentences

  • Summary of arrests, charges, convictions, etc. as of Feb. 6, 2023


Independent State Legislature (ISL) "Theory"/Moore v. Harper

  • Summary of Moore v. Harper on Oyez

  • By the way, I was wrong. Moore is the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, not the Governor of North Carolina.

  • SCOTUS Blog analysis after oral arguments in Moore v. Harper

  • ISL in Bush v Gore, via former Chief Justice William Rehnquist

  • ISL explained by the Brennan Center for Justice

  • ISL explained by Democracy Docket

  • Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch thought the court should have taken up ISL in March 2022 when Moore appealed to the Supreme Court to prevent the NC State Supreme Court's map from going into effect for the 2022 midterm election. The NC Court had ruled that the map created by the legislature violated NC's constitution due to the extreme gerrymandering employed and drew "fairer" maps that weren't skewed in Republicans' favor. While the US Supreme Court refused to grant the stay (which would have reverted to the gerrymandered maps), Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch disagreed. See here, starting on pg. 3.


2022: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization


Two white women with long brown hair hold handmade signs with the large white-columned Supreme Court building in the background. The woman on the left has her left hand covering her face while she cries, and the woman on the right is embracing her in a hug. Protesters march behind the two women.
Abortion rights activists react to the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturning the landmark abortion Roe v. Wade case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

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