Leonard Casley, a farmer, took the unusual step of declaring his property independent and styled himself Prince Leonard I. Australia's government refuses to recognise Mr Casley's claim, but this has not deterred him or his subjects.
In 1998, the government was advised to set up an independent financial regulator, styled on those of Britain and Canada.
So, while this nominating process may almost be a done deal, it's very possibly going to be a grubby deal, one that will further complicate Romney's necessary pivot from being the highly conservative candidate of the primaries to becoming the independent voter-friendly nominee styled as "America's next CEO" (his unofficial slogan for the general election).
They received help from funding promises worth billions, but they ran campaigns that were personally focused, almost styled on independents.
Or of a site like Polyvore, with its independent, self-styled editors?
The flag of the former People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, as the south was styled when it was independent, festoons the walls of the decaying port city, once its capital.
Since it was set up in 2004, the group has styled itself as an "independent grassroots campaign" that speaks "for ordinary taxpayers fed up with government waste, increasing taxation, and a lack of transparency in all levels of government".
Why? Ashley Weston, an independent celebrity menswear stylist who has styled Harrison Ford, Jon Hamm and Rob Lowe (and has no connection to Men's Style Lab) told HuffPost that trends in menswear are more static than women's trends.
Ukraine became independent in 1991 following the dissolution of the grandiloquently styled "Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR).
Newly independent Turkmenistan was ruled with an iron fist by Saparmurat Niyazov, who styled himself as Turkmenbashi ("father of the Turkmen") and renamed the days of the week after relatives.
The focus of architecture's spotlight in recent decades has been on private projects: idiosyncratically designed single-family houses, boldly styled corporate office towers, flamboyantly decorated festival markets and malls and independent institutions searching for a signature structure.
