Richard Branson was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School, where he established a national magazine called Student at the age of 16 and started a Student Advisory Center at 17 to help young people. In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail-order record retailer and shortly thereafter opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. In 1972 a recording studio was built in Oxfordshire, where the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded "Tubular Bells," which was released in 1973.
The first album of the newly created Virgin Records went on to sell over 5 million copies, and over the years many household names, including Belinda Carlisle, Genesis, Phil Collins, Janet Jackson and The Rolling Stones, helped make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world. The equity of Virgin Music Group – record labels, music publishing and recording studios – was sold to THORN EMI in 1992 in a billion-dollar deal.
The interests of Virgin Group have now expanded into international "Megastore" music retailing, the Internet, book and software publishing, film and video editing facilities, clubs, travel, hotels and cinemas through over 100 companies in 23 countries.
Virgin Atlantic Airways, formed in 1984, is now the second-largest British long-haul international airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 aircraft to 25 locations around the world, including New York, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, Orlando, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Washington, DC, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Johannesburg and the Caribbean. Founded on the concept of offering a competitive and high quality Upper Class and Economy service, Virgin Atlantic has won the Airline of the Year Award several times and holds many other major awards.
