Studies of the radioluminescence of various aromatic substances as well as of purines and pyrimidines are reviewed. Most experiments were on polar solutions and glasses between 77 and 300 K. The luminescence was studied during X-irradiation and subsequent to it. Thus, both fluorescence and phosphorescence were observed together with a slow “afterglow” and thermoluminescence. The radioluminescence of these systems arose almost exclusively from the solute. Luminescence caused by solvent to solute energy transfer was negligible. However, in molecules containing aliphatic groups some of the excitation of these groups appeared to be transferred to the triplet manifold of the chromophore. The results were compared with corresponding data obtained upon exposure with non-ionizing U.V. light under identical conditions. The emission spectra and the phosphorescence decay kinetics demonstrated that X-irradiation produces the same radiative levels as does U.V. exposure. At low temperatures the phosphorescence to fluorescence ratio was considerably enhanced with the ionizing radiation, the main reason apparently being that a large fraction of the radioluminescence at low temperatures is due to excitation resulting from geminate recombination between solute cations and electrons. On the basis of the temperature dependence of the radioluminescence of indole dissolved in ethylene glycol-water mixtures, as well as the effect of electron scavengers on this luminescence, it was estimated that at 77 K 80–85 per cent of the solute luminescence is due to recombination, the remainder being excitation directly from the ground state. The triplet to singlet ratio (T/S) for the recombination process below 150 K was 1·2, whereas for the direct excitation T S = 0·2 . The lifetime of the ion pair prior to recombination was between 2·5 × 10 −8 and 5 × 10 −5s, indicating that the electrons recombine from shallow traps or from charge transfer to solvent-like states rather than from the “free” state. Excitation by recombination fell rapidly above 150 K so that in liquid solution above 240 K direct excitation was the only mode of excitation.