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There are tentative signs that things could be changing between Washington and Tehran: The word on everyone's lips seems to be "detente." The hope among advocates of rapprochement is thatshared concernover the extreme Sunni Islamism of the Islamic State, not to mention America's fraying ties with Israel, could actually lead to a degree of cooperation between the United States and Iran.

It's possible, but a glimpse of the scene in Tehran on Tuesday shows why detente may not be so simple.

That's because today is the 35th anniversary of the start of the Iran hostage crisis, during which 52 Americans were held for 444 days in the turbulent aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. And like previous years, the date has become a time to celebrate anti-American sentiment in Tehran.

Thousands of Iranians attended a major anti-U.S. rally on Tuesday marking the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. (AP)

Since 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran has largely been empty, and diplomatic relations between the two -- formally broken in 1980 -- remain severed. (The United States instead relies on an interests section in the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.) In 2011, Time reported thattheIranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was thought to have been using the building, which was once likened to a high school by former U.S. diplomats.

The building's outside wall is now better known for a number of anti-U.S. murals that have been painted on the side.

The Associated Press reported that this year'sprotests appeared to have broughtaround 10,000 people into the streets, though the Los Angeles Times gave a smaller estimate, suggesting just 3,000. A report from Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency suggested that "tens of thousands" of people had protested around the country.

There were other remarkable scenes. Arthur MacMillan,an Agence France-Presse correspondent in Tehran, pointed to one particularly striking piece of protest art:

Other images were more standard: Flags from the United States and Israel were burned, and banners mocking President Obama were raised.

It may seem a disheartening scene for detente, butsome journalists noted that the crowds seemed to be thinner than before. This may well be a sign of a weakening anger against Washington, but it may also be driven by domestic factors -- last year's large hard-liner turnout was at least partly a response to the election ofPresident Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, for example.

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WorldViews: What Iran looks like 35 years after the U.S. Embassy takeover