Plymouth, Montserrat only ghost town that serves as the capital of a political territory. Beginning in July 1995, a series of huge eruptions at the Soufrière Hills volcano sent pyroclastic flows and ash falls across a wide area of southern Montserrat including the capital, Plymouth. It was immediately clear that the town was in grave danger. On 21 August 1995, tephra fell on Plymouth, and in December residents were evacuated as a precaution. Residents were allowed back a few months later, but on 25 June 1997, a massive eruption produced pyroclastic surges that killed 19 people and reached nearly to the island's
Long-Term Capital Management on more traditional investment vehicles, such as mutual funds, as established by the Investment Company Act of 1940—funds which accepted stakes from 100 or fewer individuals with more than $1 million in net worth each were exempt from most of the regulations that bound other investment companies. In late 1993, Meriwether approached several "high-net-worth individuals" in an effort to secure start-up capital for Long-Term Capital Management. With the help of Merrill Lynch, LTCM secured hundreds of millions of dollars from business owners, celebrities and even private university endowments and later the Italian central bank. The bulk of the money, however,