Before Richard Branson became associated with airlines, private islands and a huge international business empire, he was selling records by mail.

Branson had already launched the student magazine Student as a teenager. In 1970, he and his friend Nik Powell launched a mail-order record business through the magazine, using the name Virgin Mail Order. Virgin’s own history describes this business as the beginning of the Virgin brand.

The record business grew quickly, and Branson soon expanded from mail-order sales into a physical record shop on Oxford Street in London. That development eventually led to the creation of Virgin Records, which went on to become one of Britain’s most influential independent record labels.

Virgin Records’ first album was Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, released in 1973. The album became one of the biggest-selling records of the 1970s and gained even more attention after being featured in The Exorcist.

But Branson’s ambitions eventually went far beyond music.

Virgin expanded into aviation, travel, telecommunications, entertainment and other industries, turning the name into a global brand. Virgin says its group now spans sectors including travel and leisure, health and wellness, music and entertainment, telecommunications and media, financial services, and space.