Like an unruly adolescent, the United States kicked out the British in 1781 and eventually gained sovereignty over formerly Spanish lands in the South-West and the vast French territory of Louisiana, and set about developing representative democracy.
Eventually, the American experiment in self-government spread to much of the rest of the British Empire, starting with the great wave of independence that rippled around the world following India's independence in 1947.
In turn, the unfolding rebellion against British rule by non-white cultures of Africa and Asia helped inspire the American civil-rights movement, which finally achieved reforms that brought long-denied legal equality to people of colour in the birthplace of democracy.
British Queen Elizabeth II, 81, is to visit Jamestown on May 3-4 to help commemorate the landmark colony's 400th anniversary. The royal visit will actually be a return for the monarch, who was only five years into her reign when she attended the 350th Jamestown anniversary.
But some of those historical links have survived in a new political grouping known as the Commonwealth of Nations, an organization of 53 independent countries once part of the British Empire. The Commonwealth has dropped British from its name, recognizing the inclusive umbrella that now contains nearly one-third of the world's population, or 2 billion people.
Nonetheless, former colonies like India, Kenya, Australia and even the United States - not a Commonwealth member - still carry the imprint of the English language and British legal traditions, and Elizabeth still travels the world as a beloved celebrity, a global queen bestowing honours on her former subjects even in the roughest neighbourhoods.
During her 1999 visit to South Africa, for example, she visited a school in Johannesburg's crime-ridden, impoverished township of Alexandra, where she was greeted by cheering students. In Pretoria, she was wined and dined by South African leaders - but also took time to read a winning essay by a school child about the devastating effects of AIDS.
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