What links Berry Gordy and Herb Alpert? The Saturday quiz

The questions

1 What did Charles Sheffield sell to George III for £21,000?
2 Mexico’s Los Topos are specialists in what type of rescue?
3 Which stories were told to King Shahryar?
4 In the US, what passed $32tn in June?
5 Which element is named after the architect of the periodic table?
6 What has been removed from the packaging of Toblerone?
7 Which urban theorist wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities?
8 Vehicles over what age are exempt from an MOT?
What links:
9 An Age of Kings; The Hollow Crown; The Wars of the Roses; Chimes at Midnight?
10 Ahmet Ertegun; Herb Alpert; Berry Gordy; David Geffen; Sylvia Robinson?
11 I Love Lucy; Seinfeld; Roseanne; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Home Improvement?
12 Plain; twill; satin; basket; leno?
13 River Tay; whale in the Tay; Tay Bridge collapse; new Tay Bridge?
14 Margaret Court; Evonne Goolagong Cawley; Kim Clijsters?
15 Serjeant at Arms; top sumo referees; Penny Mordaunt?

The answers

1 Buckingham House (later Palace).
2 Earthquake zones.
3 1001 (Arabian) Nights.
4 National debt.
5 Mendelevium.
6 Image of the Matterhorn.
7 Jane Jacobs.
8 Forty years old.
9 TV, film and stage dramas based on Shakespeare’s history plays.
10 Founders (or co-founders) of US record companies: Atlantic; A&M; Motown; Asylum; Sugar Hill.
11 US sitcoms with lead characters named after the star.
12 Types of weave patterns.
13 Subjects of poems by William McGonagall.
14 Won tennis grand slams (Open era) after becoming mothers.
15 Carry swords/daggers: in the Commons; at sumo bouts; at the Coronation.