The billionaire, who will take a test voyage on his Virgin Galactic spaceship Sunday, never has been one to shy away from dangerous activities
Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Richard Branson, seen here at an air show in 2012, is a self-made billionaire who has a large conglomerate of businesses under the Virgin brand.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
A young Branson is seen in London in 1969. At the age of 16, Branson dropped out of school and started an alternative youth magazine called Student. He and his friend Nik Powell also started a mail-order record business. It was called Virgin because they were new to the business world.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson poses in one of his Virgin Megastores in 1979. His mail-order record business had evolved into a chain of successful record stores. By this time, Branson also had started his Virgin Records music label. Over the years, Virgin would sign notable artists such as the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones and Genesis.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson reads the newspaper in a bathtub aboard his houseboat in London in 1984.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
In 1984. Branson formed the airline Virgin Atlantic. He got the idea after becoming stranded in Puerto Rico when his flight to the British Virgin Islands was canceled because of a lack of passengers. He chartered a private plane and sold tickets aboard the flight to other stranded travelers.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson inaugurates his new airline on June 22, 1984.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson pilots his speedboat, the Virgin Atlantic Challenger II, in New York Harbor in 1986. He zipped across the Atlantic in a record-breaking time of three days, eight hours and 31 minutes. He tried to break the record a year earlier, but his $2 million vessel sank.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson is seen with his wife, Joan, and their children, Holly and Sam, after they were married on the Caribbean island of Neckar in 1989. The island, part of the British Virgin Islands, was purchased by Branson and is operated as a luxury resort.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson poses with his parents, Eve and Edward, at a reception in Los Angeles in 1991. His mother was a flight attendant and his father was a lawyer.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson and Per Lindstrand sit in a capsule as they prepare to fly in a hot-air balloon in 1991. In 1987, Branson and Lindstrand became the first people to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot-air balloon.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson is seen in his office in London in 1996. In 1992, he sold his Virgin Music Group to Thorn EMI. He said the sale would allow him to concentrate on his airline.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson fires up a Virgin balloon outside the city walls of Marrakesh, Morocco, in 1996.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson cuddles with a young lion cub at South Africa’s Sun City resort in 1996.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson applies makeup before the launch of his Virgin Brides venture in 1996. The business combined weddings and honeymoons in a one-stop shop.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
US Coast Guard helicopters head back to the Barbers Point Naval Air Station in Hawaii after rescuing Branson and his co-pilots following a hot-air balloon crash in 1998. Branson and his co-pilots were attempting to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon. They started in Morocco and passed through Asia before eventually crash-landing in Hawaii. No one was hurt.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
In 1999, Branson celebrates Virgin Atlantic’s inaugural flight to Shanghai, China.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson is kissed by his wife, Joan, and his daughter Holly after he was knighted in 2000 for his “service to entrepreneurship.”
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson poses for photos in India after launching a direct flight from London to New Delhi in 2000.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson launches Virgin Mobile USA, a cellular phone service, at New York’s Times Square in 2002.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson, left, pilots an amphibious vehicle during a record-breaking crossing of the English Channel in 2004. He crossed the channel in one hour, 40 minutes and six seconds.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson unveils the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, a single-engine jet that Steve Fossett would later fly around the world in a little more than 67 hours.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson runs with the Olympic torch in London in 2004, ahead of the Olympic Games that year in Athens, Greece.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson announced his space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic, in 2004.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson kisses Steve Fossett after Fossett flew the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer for 25,766 miles in 2006. It was the longest nonstop flight in history.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson appears in an episode of the TV show “Friends” in 2006.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson and former US Vice President Al Gore announce the Virgin Earth Challenge in 2007. The Virgin Earth Challenge was a $25 million prize to be awarded to an individual or a group who could demonstrate a commercially viable design to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and safely store them. The prize was never awarded, as Virgin said no entries satisfied all of the prize criteria, and the challenge is no longer active.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson jumps off the roof of the Palms hotel in Las Vegas as part of a publicity stunt for his Virgin America airline in 2007.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger address the media as Virgin Galactic unveiled a commercial spacecraft designed to send passengers into orbit for $200,000 a ticket.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson kite-surfs the English Channel in 2012. At 61 years old, he was the oldest person to kite-surf the channel. He did it in three hours and 45 minutes.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson chats with Britain’s Prince Harry at the finish of the London Marathon in 2013. Virgin has been sponsoring the event for years.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson poses for a portrait in Munich, Germany, in 2016.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson appears on an episode of the TV show “Shark Tank” in 2017.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
People take selfies with Branson after he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.
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Billionaire tycoon Richard Branson
Branson stands with crew members of Virgin Galactic in 2021. The company announced on July 1 that Branson would be among the people on board its next test flight on July 11.
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