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This Chicago Bears trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and runs from the team's 1919 birth as a starch company's works team in Decatur to the modern era: George 'Papa Bear' Halas, Red Grange's barnstorming tour, the 73-0 championship game, the Monsters of the Midway, Sid Luckman's T-formation, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus and Brian Piccolo, Walter Payton, the 1985 team with its 46 defense, the Refrigerator and the Super Bowl Shuffle, Devin Hester's Super Bowl kickoff and the rivalry with Green Bay. It is built for lifelong Bears fans, for anyone hosting a Chicago sports round, and for casual fans who want to see how much they have absorbed. Easy questions cover the colours, the stadium and the big names; the hard ones dig into ring sizes, indoor playoff games and who wrote the fight song. Every answer has been checked against a reliable source and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01The Bears franchise was founded in 1919 in which city, as a company team for a starch manufacturer?
Decatur
Decatur was home to the A. E. Staley starch company, whose works team became the Decatur Staleys; George Halas took charge in 1920 and entered the club in the new professional league that autumn.
Q 02When George Halas renamed the Staleys in 1922, 'Bears' was a nod to which other Chicago team?
The Cubs
The Cubs shared Wrigley Field, then Cubs Park, with Halas's team, and since football players are bigger than baseball players he reasoned that if they were cubs his men were bears; several early NFL clubs borrowed baseball names.
Q 03How many NFL championships, counting Super Bowl XX, did the Bears win in the 20th century?
Nine
Nine titles: eight pre-merger championships, the last in 1963, plus Super Bowl XX, a 36-point rout of New England after the 1985 season.
Q 04The Bears' famous helmet logo is a wishbone-shaped version of which letter?
C
The wishbone 'C' debuted on the helmet in 1962 in white and was switched to orange with a white outline in 1974; the team colours are navy blue, orange and white.
Q 05The Bears' nickname 'Monsters of the Midway' originally belonged to which institution?
U of Chicago
U of Chicago, whose Maroons played beside the Midway Plaisance, dropped big-time football in 1939; the Bears picked the name up in the 1940s, when Sid Luckman led them to four titles in seven seasons.
Q 06By what score did the Bears beat Washington in the 1940 NFL Championship Game?
73-0
The 73-0 rout on 8 December 1940 saw the Bears score 11 touchdowns; so many extra-point kicks went into the stands that officials asked Halas to run or pass the last conversions to save footballs.
Q 07Which offensive scheme did George Halas revive with the Bears, powering their 1940 title team?
The T-formation
The T-formation lines the quarterback up under centre with three backs in a row behind him, forming a T; Halas and Clark Shaughnessy added a man in motion, and Sid Luckman became its first great quarterback.
Q 08How long was the field when the 1932 Bears-Spartans playoff moved indoors to Chicago Stadium?
80 yards
80 yards, 20 short of regulation, was all the indoor field allowed; the Bears won 9-0 on a disputed jump-pass touchdown, and the game's success led to hash marks and a formal championship game from 1933.
Q 09Before founding the Bears, George Halas played 12 games in 1919 as an outfielder for which baseball team?
The New York Yankees
The New York Yankees gave Halas 12 games in right field in 1919, when he batted .091 before a hip injury ended his baseball career; the next year he was running the Staleys.
Q 10In which Ohio city was the 1920 meeting that created the league held?
Canton
Canton hosted the 17 September 1920 meeting in a Hupmobile showroom that founded the American Professional Football Association, renamed the NFL in 1922; Halas attended for the Staleys, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened there in 1963.
Q 11The 1925 signing of which college halfback, followed by a sell-out barnstorming tour, legitimised the NFL?
Red Grange
Red Grange, the 'Galloping Ghost', debuted for the Bears on Thanksgiving Day 1925 and drew some 70,000 to the Polo Grounds days later; in 1926 he and agent C. C. Pyle launched a rival league that lasted one season.
Q 12Bronko Nagurski, the Bears' fullback and tackle of the 1930s, was born in which country?
Canada
Canada was his birthplace: Bronko Nagurski was born in Rainy River, Ontario, in 1908 and raised across the border in International Falls, Minnesota; he later wrestled as a multiple-time world heavyweight champion.
Q 13Bears quarterback Sid Luckman played college football at which Ivy League school?
Columbia
Q 21Walter Payton played his college ball at which historically Black university?
Jackson State
Jackson State, in Mississippi, was where Payton rushed for more than 3,500 yards before the Bears took him fourth overall in 1975; his 275-yard game against Minnesota in 1977 came while he had the flu.
Q 22How many career rushing yards did Walter Payton have when he retired, then an NFL record?
16,726
16,726 rushing yards stood as the NFL record from 1984, when Payton passed Jim Brown, until Emmitt Smith overtook it in 2002; 'Sweetness' won the 1977 MVP and died of bile duct cancer in 1999.
Q 23Which team handed the 15-1 1985 Bears their only loss, on a Monday night in December?
The Miami Dolphins
Columbia's Sid Luckman, a Brooklyn native, was the 1943 NFL MVP and that November became the first to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, against the Giants at the Polo Grounds.
Q 14In which year did the Bears move from Wrigley Field to Soldier Field full-time?
1971
In 1971 the Bears left Wrigley Field, where one end zone was cut short by the left-field wall, for the larger Soldier Field after five decades at the ballpark.
Q 15Soldier Field, opened in 1924, was dedicated to American soldiers who died in which conflict?
World War I
World War I dead were honoured when Municipal Grant Park Stadium was renamed Soldier Field in 1925; the NFL's oldest stadium lost its National Historic Landmark status in 2006 after the $632 million rebuild.
Q 16Soldier Field hosted the opening match of which international tournament in 1994?
The FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup opened at Soldier Field on 17 June 1994, Germany beating Bolivia 1-0 before 63,117, a crowd the rebuilt stadium's 61,500 capacity could no longer hold.
Q 17Gale Sayers tied an NFL record as a rookie in 1965 by scoring how many touchdowns in one game against the 49ers?
Six
Six touchdowns on a muddy Wrigley Field on 12 December 1965 tied Ernie Nevers' 1929 mark; Sayers finished his rookie year with 22 touchdowns and in 1977 became the Hall of Fame's youngest inductee at 34.
Q 18A 1971 TV film with James Caan dramatised Gale Sayers's friendship with which Bears teammate?
Brian Piccolo
Brian Piccolo, Sayers's roommate in the NFL's first interracial roommate pairing, died of embryonal cell carcinoma in June 1970 at 26; the TV film 'Brian's Song' followed and the Bears retired his number 41.
Q 19The Bears linebacker who wore 51 and was drafted third overall in 1965 played college ball where?
Illinois
The Chicago native was named 'the most feared tackler of all time' by NFL Network and later acted in Blue Thunder and Hang Time.
Q 20The annual award for the best college linebacker is named after which Bears great?
Dick Butkus
Dick Butkus, the Bears' middle linebacker from 1965 to 1973, lent his name to the award created in 1985 by the Downtown Athletic Club of Orlando; the team retired his number 51 in 1994.
The Miami Dolphins won 38-24 at the Orange Bowl on 2 December 1985, preserving the 1972 Dolphins' perfect season; the Bears filmed the Super Bowl Shuffle video the next day and allowed only 198 points all year.
Q 24The 1985 Bears' defence, run by coordinator Buddy Ryan, was known by what number?
The 46
The 46 took its name from safety Doug Plank's jersey number; the 1985 unit posted the first back-to-back playoff shutouts, blanking the Giants 21-0 and the Rams 24-0 on the way to the Super Bowl.
Q 25The Bears won Super Bowl XX 46-10 over the New England Patriots in which city?
New Orleans, LA
New Orleans, LA, hosted Super Bowl XX at the Louisiana Superdome on 26 January 1986; defensive end Richard Dent was named MVP, while Walter Payton was held to 61 yards and no touchdown.
Q 26Which Bears defensive lineman scored a rushing touchdown in Super Bowl XX and owns the largest Super Bowl ring ever?
William Perry
William Perry, 'The Refrigerator', plunged in from the one-yard line in Super Bowl XX; his size-25 ring set the record for a Super Bowl champion, and the nickname came from a Clemson teammate after an elevator squeeze.
Q 27After a $5,000 fine for an Adidas headband, Jim McMahon wore one in the 1985 playoffs bearing whose name?
Rozelle
Rozelle was the name on the headband, mocking commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had fined him $5,000 for wearing an Adidas one; Rozelle reportedly found it 'funny as hell', and McMahon's Super Bowl headband read 'JDF CURE' for juvenile diabetes.
Q 28The Super Bowl Shuffle peaked at what position on the Billboard Hot 100?
41st
41st was the peak on the Hot 100 in February 1986; the record went gold, earned a Grammy nomination that lost to Prince's 'Kiss', and sent more than $300,000 to the Chicago Community Trust.
Q 29Which Bears defensive star declined to take part in the Super Bowl Shuffle at all?
Dan Hampton
Dan Hampton, the Hall of Fame defensive lineman, refused to appear, thinking it arrogant to sing about the Super Bowl before the playoffs; Walter Payton and Jim McMahon missed the original shoot and were filmed later.
Q 30Bears linebacker Mike Singletary won Defensive Player of the Year in 1985 and which other year?
1988
1988 brought Singletary his second AP Defensive Player of the Year award; the Baylor product made 10 Pro Bowls, entered the Hall of Fame in 1998 and coached the 49ers from 2008 to 2010.