Soldier Field - Notable Events

Soldier Field (then known as Grant Park Municipal Stadium) hosted its first football game on October 4, 1924 between Louisville Male High School and Chicago Austin High. Louisville Male won 26-0. (Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1924)

Three NFC Championship Games held at Soldier Field.

The 1985 NFC Championship Game took place in Soldier Field, where the Bears defeated the Los Angeles Rams 24-0.

The 1988 NFC Championship Game took place here, where the Chicago Bears lost to eventual Super Bowl XXIII champions San Francisco 49ers 28-3.

The 2006 NFC Championship Game granted the Bears their second trip to the Super Bowl, the first in 21 years, with a 39-14 victory over the New Orleans Saints.

Soldier Field played host to the Annual Army-Navy Game in 1926 before an estimated crowd of 110,000.

The Long Count Fight, the second heavyweight championship bout between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, was held at Soldier Field on September 25, 1927.

The stadium and all time college football attendance record was set on November 16, 1929 when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat the USC Trojans 13-12 in front of 112,912 fans. Notre Dame had met USC in 1927 and Navy in 1928 in front of crowds estimated at 120,000 in Soldier Field, but the 1929 number is the highest audited count.

Glenn "Fireball" Roberts won the only NASCAR Grand National race held at Soldier Field's short track which ran across the old configuration, in 1956.

The Fog Bowl was an NFC Divisional Playoff vs the Philadelphia Eagles on December 31, 1988. Dense fog covered the game reducing visibility down to 15-20 yards. The Bears won the game 20-12.

1994 FIFA World Cup Venue of all matches scheduled to play in Chicago, including the opening match between Germany and Bolivia on June 17, 1994.

Legendary rock group the Grateful Dead performed its final concert at Soldier Field on July 9, 1995.

The Rolling Stones played the largest concert in the stadium's history on September 10, 2005.

On July 21, 2006, rock and roll band Bon Jovi performed in front of 60,000 fans at Soldier Field, for 3 hours straight, making it the stadium's longest running music concert.

On September 1, 2007, Northern Illinois University faced the University of Iowa in the first Division I College Football game at Soldier Field since renovations. The game is the second game of a home and home series between the two programs, although NIU's campus is located in DeKalb, 69 miles (111 km) to the west of Soldier Field on Interstate 88. With attendance of 61,500, a Mid-American Conference record for a home football game was set.

Soldier Field appears in the Clint Eastwood-directed movie Flags of Our Fathers, when the survivors of the Iwo Jima flag-raising reenact it for a patriotic rally.

Several games of the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup were held in Soldier Field. The final was contested on June 24, 2007 between the United States and Mexico, where the United States won 2-1, fueling an already-growing intense international rivalry.