Adjective

modern (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to the current time and style.

Synonyms

• contemporary

Antonyms

• dated
• old

Derived terms

• modernise, modernize verb
• modernity noun
• postmodern

Noun

modern (plural moderns)

1. Someone who lives in modern times.
   • 1956: Even though we moderns can never crawl inside the skin of the ancient and think and feel as he did..., we must as historians make the attempt. — John Albert Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, p. 144.

Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period. Contemporary history describes the span of historic events that are immediately relevant to the present time.

The beginning of the modern era started approximately in the 16th century. Many major events caused the Western world to change around the turn of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain and the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with the victory of Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Early modern European history is usually seen to span from the turn of the 15th century, through the Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.