When would you consider "modern history" to start:
1900 - turn of the century
1905 - end of the Russo Japanese War
1914 - start of WW1
1918 - end of WW1
1922 - establishment of the USSR
1929 - Great Depression
1936 - ~Start of WW2
1945 - End of WW2
1953 - Suez Crisis
1963 - Assassination of JFK
1969 - Moon Landing
Yes this is a US centric list of events, but I can't choose a lot of options and the US has outsized influence as a nation
I'd argue that if we take modernism as a philosophical term we could argue for Descartes being the start of modern history. Historiographically, I think the invention of the nation state is a good candidate, putting the start of modern history sometime around the American and French revolutions.
In either case, this range is far too late. There's no way that the 19th century (or even early 20th???) is "pre-modern".











