Selim I

Bayezid II (1447-1512), eighth Ottoman sultan, followed his father Mehmed II's relentless conquests with three decades of consolidation. He defeated his brother Cem, restored Ottoman finances, built a war fleet, and received the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Piri Reis (c. 1465-1553) was an Ottoman captain, cartographer and author of the Kitab-i Bahriye, the most detailed sailing guide to the Mediterranean of its age. His 1513 world map, of which a third survives, drew on a chart by Columbus. He commanded Ottoman fleets in the Indian Ocean.

Selim I (1470-1520) ruled for eight years and doubled the Ottoman Empire, defeating the Safavids at Chaldiran in 1514 and conquering the Mamluk Sultanate of Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz in 1516-17. The claim that the caliphate was formally transferred to him is a later invention.