History - Read all about it

We’ve done a lot. In fact, we couldn’t possibly fit everything we’ve done on to one page. Or even two. But here are some of our best bits…

1968: So this is where it all began. Richard’s first venture ‘Student’ magazine went into print. Who’d have thought it would lead to the birth of one of the world’s biggest brands? Erm, Richard, probably.

1970: Virgin Mail Order was born. It made a pretty big noise. Which is why a buzzing Oxford Street shop followed a year later.

1972: We built a recording studio in Oxfordshire where the first ever Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded ‘Tubular Bells’. You might have heard of it…

1977: When Virgin signed the Sex Pistols, we went where all other major record labels feared to tread. Maybe because they did things like belting out ‘God Save the Queen’ on Silver Jubilee day – opposite the Houses of Parliament.

1984: Virgin Atlantic takes off, flying to all sorts of glamorous locations. Not space though. That came later.

1985: Virgin Holidays. Not content with just getting people there in style, we wanted to keep them there in style. For two weeks, anyway.

1987: Virgin Records America is founded. We were flying there a lot, so it made sense to expand there too.

1993: Virgin Radio hits the airwaves. We thought we were a bit more in tune with what people want to, well, tune into.

1994: Virgin Vodka and Virgin Cola are launched. They go together very well, as it happens.

1995: Virgin Direct pioneers index tracking by launching the best value PEP in the market.

1997: Virgin Trains wins the 15 year franchise for the Intercity West Coast line. And we’ve been going strong ever since – we launched our tilting Pendolino trains just five years later.

1999: Virgin Mobile changes the way people communicate. How? For one thing, we made sure there were no hidden costs (thereby making things much cheaper and fairer). This year we also did our bit for couch potatoes everywhere – we launched Virgin Active, a network of health clubs.

2000: Nine new Virgin companies are launched, including Virginmoney.com, Virgin Wines and Virgin Blue, our low cost airline in Australia. Nine new companies? Well, it was the year 2000.

2001: Virgin Experiences launches, giving people to the chance to try their hand at everything from driving a Porsche through to scuba diving. And about a zillion things in between.

2002: Virgin Direct merges with virginmoney.com to become Virgin Money. Different name, same focus on offering great value.

2004: Virgin Galactic launches. At Virgin, the sky is not the limit. But space probably is. This was also the year that we started Unite – our not-for-profit entrepreneurial foundation.

2006: V Festival goes global and launches in Australia. Why should the UK have all the fun? We also launched Greenfund this year – as the name suggests, it’s all about investing funds into companies that are doing green things.

2008: It was a pretty busy year. We turned our 4mb broadband service into a superfast 10mb service, and at no extra cost – we’re nice like that. We set up Virgin Mobile India (you might have seen Richard dropping 220ft from the Hilton at the launch), and we teamed up with Hip Hotels to offer our Virgin Holidays customers something a little bit more, well, hip.

2009 and beyond: Who knows? But you could be part of it…