Timeline Sunday 23 August 1514

Events on Sunday 23 August 1514 1

• 1514 Battle of Chaldiran -- the Sunni-Shia divide hardened The Battle of Chaldiran (23 August 1514) pits Selim I's Ottoman army against Shah Ismail I's Safavid forces in eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans' decisive advantage is artillery -- Ismail's cavalry-based army has none. The Safavids are routed; Selim occupies Tabriz briefly. Chaldiran is more than a military victory: it establishes the Sunni-Shia frontier between the Ottoman and Safavid empires that roughly corresponds to the modern Turkey-Iran border. It also hardens the sectarian identity of both empires: the Ottomans as champions of Sunni Islam, the Safavids as champions of Shia Islam -- a division whose consequences endure.