The cracking process occurs slowly over the service life from various crack growth mechanisms such as fatigue, stress-corrosion cracking, creep, and hydrogen-induced cracking. Each of these mechanisms has certain characteristic features that are used in failure analysis to determine the cause of cracking or crack growth. This article discusses the macroscopic and microscopic basis of understanding and modeling fracture resistance of metals. It describes the four major types of failure modes in engineering alloys, namely, dimpled rupture, ductile striation formation, cleavage or quasicleavage, and intergranular failure. Certain fundamental characteristics of fracture observed in precipitation-hardening alloys, ferrous alloys, titanium alloys...