The club was founded on May 4, 1904 as Westfalia Schalke by a group of high school students and first wore the colors red and yellow. The club won its first title in 1923 as champions of the Schalke Kreisliga. It was around this time that Schalke picked up the nickname "Die Knappen". In 1924, they took the name FC Schalke 04 and adopted the now familiar blue and white uniforms from which their second nickname would derive – "Die Königsblauen" (The Royal Blues). The following year the club became the dominant local side based on a style of play that used short, sharp man-to-man passing to move the ball. This system would later become famous as the "Schalker Kreisel" (spinning top). In 1927, it carried them to the top spot of the Gauliga Ruhr.
The popular club built a new stadium, the Glückauf-Kampfbahn, in 1928, and acknowledged the city's support by re-naming themselves FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04. They won their first Western German championship in 1929.
Schalke's first national title came in 1934 with a 2:1 victory over favorites FC Nurnberg. The next year they defended their title against VfB Stuttgart in a 6:4 win. The club missed the 1936 final, but would make appearances in the championship match in each of the next six years. They appeared victorious in 1937, 1939, 1940, and 1942. Three of those national finals were against Austrian teams – Admira Vienna, Rapid Vienna, and First Vienna – which played in Germany's Gauliga Ostmark after Austria's incorporation into the Reich through the Anschluss in 1938.
Over a dozen of seasons from 1933 to 1945, Schalke accumulated an amazing record, winning 162 out of 189 Gauliga matches, drawing 21 and losing only 6. On the way they scored 924 goals and conceived just 145. From 1935 to 1939 they did not lose a single league match. With Germany in chaos towards the end of World War II, Schalke played just two matches in 1945. They set a record in a national championship match with a 20:0 win of SpVgg Herten. Two years afterwards they lost their magic touch and slipped to 12th place. It would take them until the mid-50s to recover their form.
A number of the team's players and officials were accused of accepting bribes as part of the widespread Bundesliga scandal of 1971. Investigation showed that Schalke had played so as to deliberately lose their 28th round match against Arminia Bielefeld by a score of 0:1. As a result several Schalke players were banned for life.
In 1973, the club moved to the Parkstadion, newly built for the 1974 World Cup with a capacity of 70,000 spectators. The club managed another second place result in 1977, finishing just one point behind champions Borussia Mönchengladbach.
In the early 1980s Die Knappen ran into trouble and found themselves relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga for the 1981-82 season and again in 1983-84. They returned to the Bundesliga in 1984, and after slipping once more to the 2nd Bundesliga in 1988. In 1991-1992 they returned to the Bundesliga and remained there since then. Schalke captured consecutive German Cups in 2001 and 2002 and earned second place in the Bundesliga in 2001 and 2005.
On October 9, 2006, it was announced that Russian company Gazprom would become the club's new sponsor. The company expects to invest as much as € 125 million in the club over a 5½ year period. Within the sponsorship Schalke 04 and FC Zenit Saint Petersburg signed a partnership agreement. Both clubs intend to work closely on improving football-related issues.
• German champions 1934, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1942, 1958 • German runners-up 1933, 1938, 1941, 1972, 1977, 2001, 2005, 2007 • German Cup winners 1937, 1972, 2001, 2002 • German Cup finalists 1935, 1936, 1941, 1942, 1955, 1969, 2005 • League Cup winners 2005 • League Cup finalists 2001, 2002, 2007 • UEFA Cup winners 1997 • Coppa delle Alpi 1968 • UEFA Intertoto Cup winners 2003, 2004