Vietnam is celebrating the end of the Vietnam War on Wednesday with a grand military parade and an air show 50 years after the fall of Saigon, the event that marked the definitive conclusion of the decades-long conflict.

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday to revel in a massive military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

Vietnam has celebrated the end of the war with the United States and the formation of its modern nation 50 years ago with a military parade and a focus on a future of peace.