TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Millions of Iranians took to the streets in cities and towns across the country on Thursday to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.   
The rallies marked the victory of the 1979 Revolution, led by late Imam Khomeini, which put an end to the monarchical rule of the U.S.-backed Pahlavi regime.
Many demonstrators carried the traditional placards reading "Death to America" ??and "Death to Israel" while others carried the Iranian flag.
Iran holds annual celebrations commemorating its 1979 revolution, but Thursday was the first since a landmark deal with world powers -- including the United States -- was finalized, paving the way for punishing economic sanctions on Tehran to be lifted.
Young people at a rally on Thursday reconstructed a scene from mid-January that saw U.S. Navy sailors detained by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
Iranian television has broadcast pictures of the 10 sailors with their hands on their heads. On Wednesday night, a brief video also showed one soldier in tears.
The sailors were released within 24 hours, just days before the nuclear deal was finalized on January 16.
People from all walks of life joined officials to descend on Tehran’s iconic Azadi Square where President Hassan Rouhani addressed the nation.
Thirty-seven years after the Islamic Revolution, the world powers are now "admitting mistakes” in dealing with Iran, he told a huge gathering.
"They are now willing to interact with Tehran and have good relations with the great Iranian nation,” he said.  
Rouhani was apparently referring to a recent opening in the wake of a nuclear accord which went into effect last month, paving the way for renewed interaction between Iran and the West.
Through the agreement, the president said, Tehran managed to "defeat the Iranophobia project” and to show the world that alleged Iranian threats to the global peace and security are "baseless.”
"Today…the world’s public opinion has completely accepted that the propaganda campaign of the Zionists and the global arrogance of the US against the Iranian nation has been a lie and devoid of truth. The Iranian people are a peace-seeking people.”
More than 5,200 journalists from Iran and other countries covered the nationwide rallies.
Commander of the Quds Force Major General Qasem Suleimani attracted a great deal of media interest as he tagged along with the sea of the crowd drifting to the main venue of the rally.  
Replicas of the indigenous Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier and the long-range Emad ballistic missile were put on display as the symbol of Iranian scientific and defense achievements.  
Last October, Iran successfully tested the new missile, which Tehran says has a range of 1700 kilometers (1050 miles).
In his address, the president also touched on the upcoming elections later this month, calling on all political groups and individuals to participate in the vote.
"True principlists, true reformists and true moderates are all revolutionary,” he said.
"In our time, ‘revolutionary’ means being in favor of participation, tolerance, and resistance, and having goods capable of competition in world markets,” Rouhani said.
"Our vote will be a vote for hope, rationality, law and the protection of the rights of the Iranian nation,” he added.
The rally in Tehran ended with a statement read out to the crowd, saying the US remains "the number one enemy of Iran.”