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.
Wireless microphone
Herbert "Mac" McClelland, founder of McClelland Sound in Wichita, Kansas, fabricated a wireless microphone to be worn by baseball umpires at major league games broadcast by NBC from Lawrence–Dumont Stadium in 1951. The transmitter was strapped to the umpire's back. Mac's brother was Harold M. McClelland, the chief communications architect of the U.S. Air Force.