Clyde Champion Barrow liked to pose for photos holding his shotgun, and that was the picture chosen for his WANTED poster. His paramour, Bonnie Parker, appeared more demure was but no less deadly or dangerous with a weapon. Together the pair went on a crime spree from Texas to Oklahoma, evading the best efforts of police to capture them even as they captured the couple’s sidekicks. Their exploits were captured in the headlines of the day, and popular opinion, at the height of the Great Depression, made the outlaws into heroes. But as all good things, their spree had to come to an end.

On this day, May 23, in 1934, the pair was ambushed by a squad of police near a farm in Black Lake, Louisiana. The police predicted the pair would show up in search of their accomplice and created a ruse to slow them down and give lawmen a chance to attack. The plan worked perfectly, and Bonnie and Clyde never had a chance to react to the 130-bullet barrage.

Thirty-four years later, in August of the Summer of Love movie director Arthur Penn released the ultimate cinematic tribute to the the pair, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway playing the star-crossed-lovers to bring out contemporary issues about war and violence. The movie was divisive among the moviegoers and critics alike, but cemented Bonnie and Clyde’s place in the canon of U.S. culture.