1968-1979
Student, a youth-culture magazine created by a certain seventeen-year-old Richard Branson, is published. The first issue is handed out on January 26.
After his girlfriend accidentally falls pregnant and finds it hard to find the right place to go to for help, Richard sets up the Student Advisory Centre - a helpline where young callers with problems could retain their anonymity and be referred to the right professionals.
Richard Branson starts his Virgin Mail Order business selling cut price records by post.
The first Virgin Record Shop opens at 24 Oxford Street, London. Behind the till, Richard Branson sells the first record – a Tangerine Dream album.
Virgin opens Britain’s first residential recording studio - The Manor at Shipton-on-Cherwell near Oxford, UK - opens its doors to artists such as Sandy Denny, John Cale, Tangerine Dream, Gong, Faust & The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. 
The Virgin Records label and Virgin Music Publishing launches in the UK with the release of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells - one of the biggest selling albums of the decade and the soundtrack to ‘The Exorcist’. 
Virgin signs the Sex Pistols. We go where all other major record labels fear to tread - like belting out ‘God Save the Queen’ on Silver Jubilee day – opposite the Houses of Parliament.
Richard Branson buys Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands for £180,000 – mainly to impress a girl called Joan Templeman. It works and she marries him. Necker is now part of the Virgin Limited Edition portfolio.
Virgin buys The Venue - a music club at 160-62 Victoria Street in London, modelled on New York's The Bottom Line. The first gig, on 1 November, features Graham Parker and the Rumour. Richard hosts a fancy dress party there - and wears a babygro... The Venue later plays host to such acts as Iggy Pop, Ramones, The Smiths, Depeche Mode and Devo until it closes in August 1984. 
The first Virgin Megastore opens at 14-16 Oxford Street in London. This hallowed turf remains Virgin until 2007.
Virgin Books is launched to publish music titles - such as The Sid Vicious Family Album – to compliment the record label.
Virgin Films is launched to invest in and distribute Julian Temple's Sex Pistols mockumentary 'The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle'. The company also produces 'The Space Movie' at the request of NASA to celebrate the tenth anniversay of the Apollo moon landing. The soundtrack is by Mike Oldfield.
