Where does democracy come from?

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There are many conflicting claims to the origins of Western democracy, most obviously Athenian, although this was casually forgotten for over a thousands years. The roots of modern democracy have been claimed by revolutionaries and philosophers in the US, France and Britain. I am keen to learn who you think lays the greatest claim to this much traeasured ideal in our society. Personally i would like to put in a claim for the English Levellers who eloquently and passionately argued for democratic rights for the people after the defeat of King Charles I in the first English Civil War in 1647. The levellers, supported by many in Cromwell's New Model Army, although opposed by the army grandees. The levellers were ultimately defeated in England, although many of them fled to the New World where they continued to espoise their radical views in Massachssetts and beyond. Colonel Thomas Rainsborough said in the Putney Debates of 1647 "for really i think that the poorest hein England hath a life to live as the greatest he; therefore truly sir, i think it is clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first, by his own consent, put himself under that government; and i do think that the poorest man in England is not bound at all in the strict sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself under". Very few were talking about teh "poorest she" in those days unfortunately, but i would like to hear if anyone can beat the claim of the levellers for unleashing the genie of democracy once again in the world.