Tensile static and tension-tension fatigue behaviour has been studied in coupon specimens made from continuous fibre reinforced glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy laminates of various lay-ups, including a series of GFRP and CFRP 0,90,0 cross-ply laminates with different 90° ply thicknesses and CFRP 0, 90, +/-45 laminates with different ply stacking sequences. A variety of techniques has been used to monitor the accumulation of damage; microscopy on the polished edge of coupons, penetrant-enhanced X-radiography for CFRP laminates and visual observations for the transparent GFRP laminates. Under static loading, mechanical properties and damage thresholds are established for the onset of events such as cracking in the 90' and 45° plies and delamination. The experimentally determined 90° ply cracking threshold strains agree with predictions based on fracture mechanics, provided residual thermal strains are taken into account. Fatigue failure data are obtained for the CFRP laminates and plotted as conventional S-logN curves. The fatigue behaviour of the CFRP laminates has also been described qualitatively using a form of fatigue life representation in terms of the predominant damage mechanisms observed during cyclic loading. A detailed study of transverse ply matrix cracking showed that the mode of crack propagation depended on the type of loading. Crack growth across the width of the ply was instantaneous under static loading and at high cyclic stresses. At low cyclic stresses, i.e. below the static cracking threshold, cracks initiated only after a number of cycles (dependent on the stress level) and then grew slowly across the width of the ply throughout the course of loading. Slow crack growth was also observed at high cyclic stresses when the density of full width cracks was high and the crack spacing was small. The crack growth rate was found to be independent of crack length and to depend on crack spacing and hence was strongly influenced by interactions between neighbouring cracks. Fatigue growth of individual cracks was modelled using an approach based on an expression for the stress intensity factor at the tip of a transverse ply crack and a Paris fatigue crack growth relationship.