1920­1970
Originally named the Decatur Staleys, the club was established by the A. E. Staley Company of Decatur, Illinois in 1919 as a company team. This was the typical start for several early professional football franchises. The company hired George Halas and Edward "Dutch" Sternaman in 1920 to run the team, and turned over full control of the team to them in 1921. However, official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL.

Along with the Arizona Cardinals (originally from Chicago themselves), The Chicago Bears are one of only two charter members of the NFL still in existence. The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys. Under an agreement reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley, Halas purchased the rights to the club from Staley for US$100.

The Chicago Bears dominated the league in the early years. Their rivalry with the Cardinals, the oldest in the NFL (and a crosstown rivalry from 1920 to 1959), was key in four out of the first six league titles (see History of the Chicago Bears). During the league's first six years, The Chicago Bears lost twice to the Canton Bulldogs (who took two league titles over that span), and split with their crosstown rival Cardinals (going 4­4­2 against each other over that span), but no other team in the league defeated The Chicago Bears more than a single time. During that span, The Chicago Bears posted 34 shutouts.

The Chicago Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest, fiercest and most storied in American professional sports, dating back to 1921. In one infamous incident that year, Halas got the Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent their signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after The Chicago Bears had closed the deal with that player.

In 1922, Halas changed the team name from the Staleys to The Chicago Bears. The team moved into Wrigley Field, which was home to the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise. As with several early NFL franchises, The Chicago Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball team (some directly, some indirectly - like The Chicago Bears, whose young are called "cubs"). Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and The Chicago Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue is a Navy Blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange).

The 1924 team photo
The franchise was an early success under Halas, capturing the NFL Championship in 1921 and remaining competitive throughout the decade. In 1924 The Chicago Bears claimed the Championship after defeating the Cleveland Bulldogs on December 7, even putting the title "World's Champions" on their 1924 team photo. But the NFL had ruled that games after November 30 did not count towards league standings, and The Chicago Bears had to settle for second place behind Cleveland. Their only losing season came in 1929.
During the 1920s the club was responsible for triggering the NFL's long-standing rule that a player could not be signed until his college's senior class had graduated. The NFL took that action as a consequence of The Chicago Bears' aggressive signing of famous University of Illinois player Red Grange within a day of his final game as a collegian.

After the financial losses of the 1932 Championship season, Halas' partner Dutch Sternaman left the organization. Halas maintained full control of The Chicago Bears until his death in 1983. He also coached the team off-and-on for forty seasons, an NFL record. In the 1932 "Unofficial" NFL Championship, The Chicago Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the first indoor American football game at Chicago Stadium.
The success of the playoff game led the NFL to institute a championship game. In the very first NFL Championship, The Chicago Bears played against the New York Giants, defeating them 23­21. The teams met again in the 1934 NFL Championship where the Giants, wearing sneakers[8] defeated The Chicago Bears 30­13 on a cold, icy day at the Polo Grounds.

The 1946 NFL Championship team photo
From 1940­1947, quarterback Sid Luckman led The Chicago Bears to victories in four out of the five NFL Championship Games in which they appeared. The team acquired the University of Chicago's discarded nickname "Monsters of the Midway" and their now-famous helmet "C", as well as a newly-penned theme song that declared them "The Pride and Joy of Illinois". One famous victory during that period was their 73­0 victory over the favored Washington Redskins at Griffith Stadium in the 1940 NFL Championship Game; the score is still an NFL record for lopsided results.[9] The secret behind the one-sided outcome was the introduction of a new offensive formation by Halas. The T-formation, as Halas named it, involved two running backs instead of the traditional one in the backfield. Luckman's success at the quarterback position for The Chicago Bears has not been matched, as he still holds club records for passing.

After declining throughout the 1950s, the team rebounded in 1963 to capture their 8th NFL Championship, which would be their last until 1985. The late 1960s and early 1970s produced notable players like Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, and Brian Piccolo, who died of Embryonal carcinoma in 1970. The American television network ABC aired a movie about Piccolo in 1971 entitled Brian's Song, starring James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in the roles of Piccolo and Sayers respectively; Jack Warden won an Emmy Award for his performance as Halas. The movie was later released for theater screenings after first being shown on television.

Halas retired as coach in 1967 and spent the rest of his days in the front office. He became the only person to be involved with the NFL throughout the first 60 years of its existence. He was also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first induction class in 1963. As the only living founder of the NFL at the February 1970 merger between the NFL and the American Football League, the owners honored Halas by electing him the first President of the National Football Conference, a position that he held until his death in 1983. In his honor, the NFL named the National Football Conference Championship trophy as the George Halas Memorial Trophy.

1970­present
After the merger, The Chicago Bears finished the 1970 season with a last-place finish in the division, a repeat of their placing in the 1969 season. In 1975 The Chicago Bears drafted Walter Payton from Jackson State University with their first pick, and he made an immediate impact on the football landscape. He won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award in the 1977­78 season. Payton would go on to eclipse Jim Brown's NFL career rushing record in 1984 before retiring in 1987, and would hold the mark until 2002, when Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys surpassed it. Payton's career and great personality would capture the hearts of Bear fans, who called him "Sweetness". He died from a rare liver cancer in 1999 at the age of 45.

From 1977 through 1985 the club's official cheerleaders were the Honey Bears, who were hired by then General Manager Jim Finks. They cheered at Soldier Field during all Bears home games and performed at halftime for the viewing public. The group's founder and choreographer, Cathy Core, was contacted by Finks on the topic of organizing the cheerleading squad, but as she didn't believe that Finks was actually calling she hung up. When she later found out the call was genuine, she apologized.

The idea of a cheerleading squad was thought up by Halas himself, who called them "dancing girls". Halas was quoted as saying that the Honey Bears would be around as long as he was alive. After his death in 1983, his heirs in the McCaskey family decided to end their relationship with the Honey Bears, declining to renew their contract following The Chicago Bears' championship season of 1985. Word has it that as long as the McCaskey family owns the team, the Honey Bears will remain a memory.

On November 1, 1983, a day after the death of George Halas, his oldest daughter, Virginia McCaskey, took over as the majority owner of the team. Her husband, Ed McCaskey, succeeded her father as the Chairman of the Board. Their son Michael became the third president in team history. Mrs. McCaskey holds the honorary title of "secretary of the board of directors", but the 82­year­old matriarch has been called the glue that holds the franchise together. Mrs. McCaskey's reign as the owner of The Chicago Bears was not planned, as her father originally earmarked her brother, George "Mugs" Halas, Jr. as the heir apparent to the franchise. However, he died of a massive heart attack in 1979, and four years later she inherited the team upon George Halas' death. Her impact on the team is well-noted as her own family has dubbed her "The First Lady of Sports", and the Chicago Sun-Times has listed her as one of Chicago's most powerful women.

Mike Ditka, a tight end for The Chicago Bears from 1961 to 1966, was hired to coach the team in 1982. In the 1985 season the fire in The Chicago Bears­Packers rivalry was relit when Ditka used 350­plus pound lineman "Refrigerator" Perry as a truly "wide" receiver in a touchdown play at Lambeau Field, flagrantly taunting the Packers. The Chicago Bears won their ninth NFL Championship, first since the AFL-NFL merger, in Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season in which they dominated the NFL with their then-revolutionary 46 defense and a cast of characters that recorded the novelty rap song "The Super Bowl Shuffle". The season was notable in that The Chicago Bears had only one loss, the "unlucky 13th" game of the season, a Monday night affair in which they were defeated by the Miami Dolphins. At the time, much was made of the fact that the 1972 Dolphins were the only franchise in history to have had an undefeated season and post-season. The Dolphins came close to setting up a rematch in the Super Bowl, but lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was videotaped the day after that Monday night loss in Miami.

After the 1985 Championship season, The Chicago Bears remained competitive throughout the 1980s but failed to return to the Super Bowl under Mike Ditka. Since the firing of Ditka at the end of the 1992 season, The Chicago Bears have only made the playoffs five times. The club has also gone through three coaching changes since 1993. Dave Wannstedt was the head coach from 1993 through 1998. Dick Jauron succeeded Wannstedt after the 1998 season. After having his contract extended through 2004 after The Chicago Bears went 13­3 in 2001, Jauron was fired at the end of the 2003 season. Before The Chicago Bears hired Jauron in January 1999, Dave McGinnis (Arizona's defensive coordinator, and a former Bears assistant under Ditka and Wannstedt) backed out of taking the head coaching position. The Chicago Bears scheduled a press conference to announce the hiring before McGinnis agreed to contract terms.[20] Incidentally, soon after Jauron's hiring, Mrs. McCaskey fired her son Michael as president, replacing him with Ted Phillips and promoting Michael to chairman of the board. McCaskey's reign as president has been viewed as a disaster with mishap after mishap. Phillips, the current Bears president, became the first man outside of the Halas-McCaskey family to run the team.

Lovie Smith accomplished his first objective as the team's head coach by sweeping the Green Bay Packers during the 2005 season.
Lovie Smith, hired by the franchise on January 15, 2004, is the third and current (as of 2007) post-Ditka head coach. Joining The Chicago Bears as a rookie head coach, Smith brought the highly successful Tampa 2 defensive scheme with him to Chicago. Before his second season with The Chicago Bears, the team rehired their former offensive coordinator and then Illinois head coach Ron Turner to improve The Chicago Bears' struggling offense. In 2005, The Chicago Bears won their division and reached the playoffs for the first time in four years. Their previous playoff berth was earned by winning the NFC Central in 2001. The Chicago Bears improved upon their success the following season, by clinching their second consecutive NFC North title during week thirteen of the 2006 season, winning their first playoff game since 1995, and earning a trip to Super Bowl XLI.[24] However, they fell short of the championship, losing 29­17 to the Indianapolis Colts. Following the 2006 season, the club decided to give Lovie Smith a contract extension through 2011, at roughly $5 million per year. This comes a season after being the lowest paid head coach in the National Football League.

The club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2007 season, they lead the NFL in overall franchise wins with 693 and have an overall record of 693­508­42 (going 677­491­42 during the regular season and 16­17 in the playoffs).