Chicago Bears
American football team
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. They are one of two remaining franchises from the NFL's founding in 1920, along with the Arizona Cardinals (originally the Racine Cardinals of Chicago). The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, adjacent to Lake Michigan. The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during the season, and began hosting training camp at Halas Hall in 2020 after major renovations.
The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois on September 20, 1919 as the Decatur Staleys, a works team of the A. E. Staley starch company. They became professional on September 17, 1920 as charter members of the American Professional Football Association (forerunner of the NFL), and moved to Chicago in 1921. They became the Bears in 1922. The Bears played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they have played since then at Soldier Field.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chicago Bears” as american football team. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american football team. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q205033. VIAF identifies the subject as 148910631. The Library of Congress control number is n79065289. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 2020, 1919 and 1921.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Chicago Bears”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Chicago Bears primary sources, Chicago Bears archive and Chicago research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chicago Bears” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.