When did the modern time period start?

[Sayeret]

When does the modern time period start? In other words from what to present do you consider modern times?

[Rantanplan]

1789

[<Gypsum Fantastic>]

Tomorrow.


It's a relative question.

How long is a piece of string?

[von_Moo142]

I'm going to go for 1687, when Newton published the first volume of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Newtonian mechanics (and Newtons calculus) gave us the most powerful scientific tools that I can think of, and was a significant contribution towards moving from a subjectivistic* world to a more rational world. We shouldn't underestimate the impact that this has had.

*Not that he ridded us of people who are prepared to make uninformed subjectivist judgements about the way things work Just look at the popularity of pseudoscience...

[Para]

With the industrial revolution.

[-=P=-]

as for warfare the mid 70's marked a new generation IMO

[Werewolf01]

With the industrial revolution.

I agree.

[Beowulf]

With the industrial revolution.

I agree.
x2

[Jani.R]

When Finland was formed. :P

[Yosy]

With the industrial revolution.

Don't agree. Here's how I see it:

.... - to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (400 AD): Ancient World (with more divisions in it).

400-1000: Dark Ages (actually the second - the first was from 1200 to 700 BC)

1000-1400: Middle Ages

1400-1600: Renaissance

1600-1750: Modern Age

1750-1945: Industrial Age

1945-1990: Nuclear Age

1990-... : Digital Age (some people call it Information Age)

Comments?

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[James]

1989... I see WWI, WWII, and the Cold War as linked, almost like a single event that lasted 75 years... The Berlin wall came down in 1989, the USSR came apart in 1991, and now things are what they are.

On a side note, but related... when does something stop being classified as "Current Events" and become history?

[Yosy]

There are a lot of historians that say that we shouldn't divide WW1 and 2: it was the same conflict with a 20-year gap in the middle. I agree with this.


On a side note, but related... when does something stop being classified as "Current Events" and become history?

No-one really knows. Some say its a generation, others 10 years, others 15 years and others 20 years. I think 15-20 years is the most accepted.

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[soma]

Bout yesterday I thunk.

[<Gypsum Fantastic>]

I suppose modern warfare started the day somone sharpened a stick and poked another guy in the eye.

[sp2c]

no modern warfare started when the germans started blitzkrieging the rest of the world

otherwise I'd go for the inventeion of steampowered machines, don't know when that was though and I'm to damned lazy to look it up ;)

[Para]

With the Industrial revolution came the ability to mass produce weapons, faster transport on both the sea and land, the more efficient use of the land and better machined to work it. There was more food and a population explosion, also food could now bee transported around the globe from one Continent to another. Technology started of slowly and gradually sped up with the passing of time and mans understanding of it, but each major conflict just added to the speed and the development.

[sp2c]

yes but the way wars were fought didn't really change with the industrial revolution.

untill ww2 the side with the most infantrymen won

[Yosy]

^^^^

This is from a book called "The Third World War: August 1985" written by General Sir John Hackett: a very complex and realistic book that was a bestseller when it came out (1978).

"Wars normally provoke a technological advance"

"The wars of the end of the XIX century - for example, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War - were wars of the railway, telegraph, ligh repetition weapons and canned rations. The seas were dominated by iron monsters. In the beginning of the XX century, the Russo-Japanese War showed, to whoever cared to learn, the domain in the battlefield of the shovel, barbed wire and automatic weapons. The First World War provided the same lesson, being dominant aspects the internal combustion engine, artillery, submarines, air power and armoured vehicles. The Second World War was of total mobility in land, sea and air, of general mobilization of the population and industrial resources, of sea power and air forces. It ended in the shadow of the nuclear weapon. The Third World War was generally expected as the first nuclear war, and maybe the last. In reality, it was essentially and electronic war."

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[Para]

sp2c
You say that wars did not change until WW2, well if you have read much history I think you will find that one of the worlds first modern wars was the American Civil War, where they went from flintlock muskets to machine guns. The whole outlook on naval warfare also changed with all steel warships and turreted guns instead of broadsides. Also you had some of the first self loading rifles in action,also the railways played a major role in the movement of troops, the list is endless

[11F5S]

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html

[sp2c]

sp2c
You say that wars did not change until WW2, well if you have read much history I think you will find that one of the worlds first modern wars was the American Civil War, where they went from flintlock muskets to machine guns. The whole outlook on naval warfare also changed with all steel warships and turreted guns instead of broadsides. Also you had some of the first self loading rifles in action,also the railways played a major role in the movement of troops, the list is endless

sure technology improved but untill ww2 it wasn't a really mobile affair.

Army's would march for a while untill they made contact then they'd charge each other untill one was defeated.

Blitzkrieg is a bit different

[Para]

The Germans still used horses a great deal in WW 2 to pull their guns and even store waggons, the railways where still the the most used way of moving troops and stores around a country, so what had changed since the American Civil War, well the only thing was better communications and aircraft

[James]

Tanks
Automatic weapons
any vehicle with a motor
stuff that runs on electricity
penicillin
airplanes
radios

other than those things, yeah, WWII and the Civil War were alike... :|

[Para]

Tanks where in WW1, Automatic weapons where in the American civil War,
The Telegraph ran on Electricity and that was also in the American Civil War. Yes I know that they did not have aeroplanes but they did use manned balloons for artillery spotting, was WW2 that different except for the numbers involved

[James]

Well, we (the U.S.) used atomic weapons as well. WWII was truly a global war, IMHO, and a "Total War" between nation states where civilian population centers were routinely targeted for massive destruction. I think the most similarity between them was at the level of the individual grunt; one man carrying a rifle and about 70 pounds of gear who got where he had to go by walking... Unconditional surrender was a condotion the Allies set for the end of WWII, whereas in the American Civil War it wasn't so much unconditional surrender as "Quit fighting and rejoin your country". I don't think they were very much alike, but maybe that's just me.

[Para]

I was not looking at the political angle of the modern world, but when it began change into what we know it as today. Altough WW2 moved it on by leaps and bounds that level of change had started long before the start of the 20th Century, but in the early part of 19th Century. One of the biggest movements was the introduction of the steam engine, which powered the industrial reveloution, before being replaced other means of power.

[Minardiau]

For me it was the shift from the Feudal Age/Dark Ages into the Renaisonce (spelling)

Once the idea of nationalism started taking shape.

[Doomsayer]

together with the first computer

[Herrmannek]

when automatic firearms and engine propeled(land and airborne) means of transportation entered service on global scale...

[Yosy]

For me it was the shift from the Feudal Age/Dark Ages into the Renaisonce (spelling)

Once the idea of nationalism started taking shape.

The legal concept of nation-state was created with the end of the 30-Years War (1648). The true nationalism was born with the French Revolution (1789).

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[Minardiau]

I've read in books that the idea of nationalism or rather. The idea that "We as the people make the nation" which basically came about during the 1500's especially in England.

Which in my view was the begining of the modern era. And really considering this period braught about the true meaning of "state vs state" warfare (England v Spain) which up until 911....You get the idea.

[el borracho]

I would have to say that it began with the Industrial Revolution. This triggered the great shift from agrarian based societies (at the public level) which caused the middle class to explode and also encouraged the steady migration from rural to urban areas. Once the middle class became more stable, they could shift their attention from basic sustenance to more loftier pursuits like accumulation of wealth (from a capiltalist point of view)- which then led to more and more people (from outside the upper class) attending universities and furthuring the intellectual movement as a whole. With this influx began the sharp increase of inventions and accomplishments in all fields of science and technology.

By the beginning of the 20th century these discoveries had also impacted the battlefield, with inventions and improvements of equipment (now considered mundane) such as machine guns, recoiled artillery (not as glamorous as the others therefore highly underrated), tanks, submarines, and the airplane.

IMHO things like nuclear weapons and the progression of technology into the information age are just natural steps in a process that was begun a century before. They are incredible achievements on their own right, but fall on a long line previously started and do not merit a new beginning for an era.

[el borracho]

yes but the way wars were fought didn't really change with the industrial revolution.

untill ww2 the side with the most infantrymen won

Not during the revolution, per se, but the equipment used in WWII which transformed warfare from the old-school "infantry vs. infantry" had it's beginnings long before 1939...from that point it was merely refined.

[RGRBOX]

Still waiting for it...

[M1A2U2]

what about 2001-present?

[Sgt.Snatchgrabber]

I believe the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe catalyzed an exchange of ideas that are now the foundations for military strategy, tactics, and technology.