Invention of the telephone
The carbon microphone was independently developed around 1878 by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, and most historians credit him with its invention.
Noise-canceling microphone
The development is a special case of the differential microphone topology most commonly used to achieve directionality. All such microphones have at least two ports through which sound enters; a front port normally oriented toward the desired sound and another port that's more distant. The microphone's diaphragm is placed between the two ports; sound arriving from an ambient sound field reaches both ports more or less equally. Sound that's much closer to the front port than to the rear will make more of a pressure gradient between the front and back of the diaphragm, causing it to move more. The microphone's proximity effect is adjusted so that flat frequency response is achieved for sound sources very close to the front of the mic – typically 1 to 3 cm. Sounds arriving from other angles are subject to steep midrange and bass rolloff. Commercially and militarily useful noise-canceling microphones have been made since at least 1935, Amelia Earhart used one on her 1935 flight from Hawaii to California and have been made since the 1940s by Roanwell, Electro-Voice and others.