Lessons in Culture, Civics and Sports at Soldier Field in Chicago

Recently, more than a dozen students made a trip to Soldier Field in downtown Chicago. They explored Sports in U.S. History as part of their field trip.

Soldier Field is an American football stadium located in the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It opened in 1924 and is the home field of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL), who moved there in 1971, and the Chicago Fire of the Major League Soccer (MLS), who will start playing there in 2020.[12][13] With a football capacity of 61,500, it is the third-smallest stadium in the NFL. In 2016, Soldier Field became the second-oldest stadium in the league when the Los Angeles Rams began playing temporarily at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which opened a year earlier than Soldier Field.

The stadium’s interior was mostly demolished and rebuilt as part of a major renovation project in 2002, which modernized the facility but lowered seating capacity, while also causing it to be delisted as a National Historic Landmark. Soldier Field has served as the home venue for a number of other sports teams in its history, including the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL, University of Notre Dame football, as well as games from the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and multiple CONCACAF Gold Cup championships. In 1968, it hosted the first Games of the Special Olympics (source).