Devoid of Anything Useful

For almost 1600 years in the Common Era (or Anno Domini), mankind had not much change. Between each generation were just subtle changes, either a paradigm of some sort. Then came the Renaissance, of which exploration of new ideas away from the Church started the first few scientific discoveries.

Science improved as time went on, and at the start of the 19th Century, Radio was invented. Long distance communication which was fast and readily available was here. Ideas that were kept to oneself were spread easily. Of course, it took a while before idea spreading rather than fact spreading was done long distance, but I would attribute the start of long distance communication as the Current Era.

Then of course, there was the internet which more people attribute to the spread of ideas. I have no qualms about that, but the internet would not have been formed so quickly without primitive long distance communications.