It is still generally better than any other era before it. For the average Joe, any historical era was a bad era to be in, and the present's only marginally better. Most people who are not actively starving or being hoisted on an invader's pike are usually fairly content. But being happy doesn't mean the circumstances of your life don't reek. The problem with history is that it's maybe one hundredth of one percent of what's going on in the world at any one point.
History is rife with kings, queens, explorers and inventors.
The bulk of the world's population at any time, however, is a bunch of schmoes planting crops and making horseshoes and typing code and asking you if you want fries with that. We see movement and advancement in the course of humanity's stay because we pick up individual events like seashells on the shore and string them together and call the necklace history. Meanwhile, the acres of sand at our feet stays the same. You can go to nearly every spot on the globe and see the vast majority of your brethren living essentially the same lives as their fathers, grandmothers, and ancestors, all the way back to beginning of the agricultural age, with only the occasional television or Bulls jersey thrown into to remind you that you're still here in the 20th Century. Ask any of these people what historical era they feel it was best to live in, they'd probably look at you like you're nuts.