I don't have sources atm but I heard a lecture series recently about the development of the language that was full of examples of the way particularly vowels have changed over time. From memory Shakespeare was before The Great Vowel Shift and sounded more like modern Gaelic than either English or American. If you want to keep reading, start with the Great Vowel Shift, I reckon. It's interesting stuff.
Not quite, over time the british accent became less and less rhotic, meaning they don't pronounce r as much, while american accents stayed rhotic, but still changing in different ways. (like in far, it would be pronounced faah in non rhotic speech.) Because non-rhotic speech was used by the upper class, people tried to emulate it and they ended up with the non-rhotic English accent.
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