England: The Glorious Revolution of 1688 established a king selected by parliament, ending the troubles in that country in the seventeenth century. This was primarily done by the faction called the Whigs, who used the term "modern" for generations thereafter to gain credit. Later generations and political parties did not consider this a sufficient change to merit the term.

France: Although the French still glory in the magnificence of King Louis XIV, the end of his reign in 1715 is considered by them as a handy spot from which to tout the next phase of French glory, the Enlightenment, which they call « l'Age des lumières ». In other words, what happened in Britain does not concern them. After the French Revolution of 1789, they declared that the modern age had been surpassed by the contemporary age.

Russia: It took some time for the European socialists to conceive that the next great revolution would start someplace other than in France. But the Russians have always compared themselves to the French. After the October revolution, the Communist party of the Soviet Union declared that the "modern age" began with Peter the Great and the "contemporary age" began with this Bolshevik revolution.

Japan: The Japanese call the dynasties previous to the Tokugawa dynasty as medieval, and the Meiji Restoration of 1866–1869 is considered equivalent to the French Revolution of 1789, but haven't assimilated a form of the word modern for Tokugawa.

As for the Third World, the obvious benchmarks are colonization by European imperial powers during the "New Imperialism" and the subsequent decolonization in the twentieth century. But "modern" and "contemporary" are not used for this purpose.

The United States: A seemingly natural dividing point as far as Spain and the new world are concerned is the voyage of Columbus in 1492. But the need for such an undertaking was underscored by the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire of the Turks in 1453, so historians once took this as their benchmark.