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Over the years, the story of Bonnie and Clyde has become one of the greatest, quintessentially American love stories in history. The criminal couple who went on a spree of theft, murder, and kidnapping during the Great Depression of the 1930s seem to have been collectively forgiven for their atrocities by the public, for no reason other than the fairy-tale romance that surrounded their criminality. After all, everybody loves a good story of young, crazy love against the world. But what was the real Bonnie and Clyde story, besides the modern legend that we all know?

Read on to learn all the dirty details about the story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

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Bonnie and Clyde were two of the most determined criminals of the early 20th century, and wreaked havoc on the American South, West, and Midwest for the better of three years between 1931 and 1934, at the height of the Great Depression.

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Born to a poor Texan family in 1910, Bonnie Parker was chronically dissatisfied with her life as a wage worker since she was a young girl. After Bonnie's father died when she was only four, her mother moved them from the small town of Rowena into a suburb of Dallas.

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In Dallas, Bonnie continued her education and met a charming, if not dangerous, boy named Roy Thornton when she was 15 years old. The two married only days before her 16th birthday. Unfortunately, Thornton's constant run-ins with the law and perpetual absence from Bonnie's life and their shared home made it impossible for their marriage to continue.

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Clyde Barrow was born on a farm in rural Texas in 1909, the fifth of the seven children his destitute parents struggled to feed. The family moved to West Dallas in the 1920s, where Barrow and his brothers quickly became involved with petty crime.

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Clyde's life could have taken a wildly different turn, though. In 1926, when Clyde was 17 years old, he tried to join the United States Navy, but was turned down, ostensibly for medical reasons stemming from a lingering childhood illness. Experts believe this weighed heavy on Clyde for the rest of his life.

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In life, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow enchanted the nation. In a time of widespread poverty and destitution, gangsters and gangs were increasingly common, but none had the romantic appeal that Bonnie and Clyde did. The nation saw them as partners in passion and in crime. Today, almost a century after their death, Bonnie and Clyde continue to be seen as a modernized Romeo and Juliet, lovers destined for death who couldn't have cared less what the world thought of them, as long as they had each other (Image from 1967's 'Bonnie and Clyde').

Sources: (Listverse) (Factinate) (Ranker)

See more: The most ingenious criminal masterminds in history

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The details of Bonnie and Clyde's first interactions are spotty at best, but most theories agree that they met through a mutual friend in 1930 and became immediately infatuated with each other. Clyde, already accustomed to a life of crime, and Bonnie, unemployed and sick of Dallas with nothing to lose, became inseparable partners in love and in crime.

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Despite cutting off ties with her husband in 1929 and never seeing him again, Bonnie never actually divorced Roy Thornton. In fact, she wore her wedding ring until the day she died. Contrary to popular belief, Bonnie and Clyde were never legally married.

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Despite their larger-than-life public stature, the dynamic duo were actually fairly low to the ground. Bonnie Parker stood at a modest 4'11" (150 cm) and Clyde was a barely taller 5'4" (162 cm).

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Despite being two of the most notorious criminals in American history, Bonnie and Clyde were far from the most elusive. Clyde particularly was constantly in and out of jail, but Bonnie almost always managed to help him out. When Clyde was 21, he escaped a Texas prison with the help of a weapon smuggled in by Bonnie, but not before crushing the skull of and killing another prisoner who had repeatedly assaulted Clyde during his time inside.

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Two years later, during another stint in jail, Clyde was sentenced to hard labor on a prison farm, and that was labor he did not intend to do. To avoid the farm, Clyde cut off two of his own toes, an act that would cause him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Toes or no toes, Clyde was set free just six days later, after his mother successfully petitioned for his release.

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Clyde wasn't the only one who limped his way in and out of trouble. After a near-fatal car crash in 1933, Bonnie also developed a limp so severe that she sometimes needed Clyde to carry her, otherwise she simply hopped on her good foot.

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While Bonnie and Clyde were undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with on their own, they did usually have some company, known collectively as the Barrow Gang. At different times, this included Clyde's brother Buck Barrow, his wife Blanche, W.D. Jones, Henry Methvin, and Raymond Hamilton (Photo from 1967's 'Bonnie and Clyde').

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While the Barrow Gang were most well known for their bank robberies, banks weren't their first choice of targets. They considered grocery stores, old folks homes, gas stations, and the occasional armory, the latter to keep their gun supply stocked.

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Other favorite activities included kidnapping and carjacking. Carjacking was a necessity, as they had to stay constantly on the run and were often crashing their cars. Kidnapping sometimes came with the carjacking, other times they had to take hostages to get away from their hits safely.

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Usually, they treated their captives well, and would sometimes even give them a bit of consolation cash when they did finally release them. While they were notorious for the violent aspects of their crimes, they usually preferred that no one got hurt.

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There were several occasions during which Bonnie and Clyde tried to leave their life of crime behind. After being released from prison in the early 1930s, Clyde took up work in a Texas glass factory in an attempt to make ends meet as an upstanding citizen, but the harassment by the police never ceased, and the couple decided if they were going to be hounded by the law, it might as well be for a good reason (Picture from 1967's 'Bonnie and Clyde').

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Clyde, throughout his life, was an avid musician who loved to play the saxophone and guitar. According to Clyde's sister, Lillian, Clyde as a young boy loved to play music for his neighborhood. His saxophone stayed with him for all his life, and was found in the car that he and Bonnie were famously killed in.

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Clyde's second prized possession, his guitar, unfortunately didn't make it through the whole journey. After their hideout in Joplin, Missouri, was ambushed in 1933, the Barrow Gang was forced to leave almost everything behind; Clyde's precious guitar was one of the abandoned possessions.

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Also among the items left behind in Joplin was Bonnie's camera and a number of undeveloped rolls of film. These photos were swiftly developed and circulated throughout the press, adding an entirely new and intimate dimension to the public's rapidly growing obsession with the hopeless, heartless romantics. Also found in their hideout was Bonnie's book of poetry.

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Bonnie harbored a penchant for writing since she was a young girl, but it was while she served time in Texas's Kaufman County Jail that she began to write poetry in earnest. Many of her poems were autobiographical, detailing the adventures she shared with the love of her live.

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One poem written by Bonnie, titled 'The Trail's End' but more commonly known as 'The Story of Bonnie and Clyde,' penned around 1933, chronicles the vast majority of their lives together, and even looks into the future. The final stanza of the poem details their death, which Bonnie saw as imminent. She would be tragically proven right only a year later.

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By 1934, Bonnie and Clyde and their gang had racked up a body count of at least 13, including nine lawmen and four civilians. After the photos from Bonnie's lost camera rolls became famous nationwide, the federal government finally stepped in to help local law enforcement catch the country's favorite criminals. A posse of Texas and Louisiana highwaymen, led by infamous Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, started tracking down the gang.

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As the feds and the highwaymen closed in on the gang, evasion became more and more difficult. Motels, stores, and restaurants across the country were on high alert, and the gang resorted to hiding out in the woods and cooking over campfires. They knew their days were numbered, but never once did the star-crossed lovers consider parting ways. They were in it together, until the very end.

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The famous car that Bonnie and Clyde drove into their fateful ambush in 1934 was indeed a very nice car for the time. The car was a brand new 1934 Ford Model 40 B Deluxe Sedan.

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By May of 1934, Hamer and company were hot on Bonnie and Clyde's tail, now abandoned by the rest of their gang. After receiving a tip as to where the duo were heading next, Hamer and his highwaymen set up an ambush in the bushes lining Louisiana State Highway 154.

With the car of an old friend placed on the side of the road in hopes it would slow the notoriously speedy Clyde, the highwaymen waited. Finally, just as planned, Bonnie and Clyde came speeding toward the ambush area and slowed down once they saw the familiar car. The first shot fired struck Clyde right in the head, killing him instantly. An additional 112 bullets were fired into the car, tearing apart both the vehicle and the bodies inside.

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Unfortunately, the havoc didn't end with Bonnie and Clyde's death. The police still weren't satisfied and put over a dozen of the duo's friends and family on trial. They even accused Clyde's mother, Cumie Barrow (pictured left), of orchestrating the entire three-year crime spree. While this theory quickly fell flat, Cumie did end up serving a month-long jail sentence.

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