Alex Salmond has bowed out as SNP leader with the promise that Nicola Sturgeon will lead Scotland to independence.
The First Minister told his party's conference in Perth that September's referendum, despite ending in defeat for the Nationalists, had set Scotland on a course to independence.
Turning to Ms Sturgeon at the end of his final keynote address, he told her: "Your future contribution will be to make history."
Referring to the impact of the referendum, he added: "The people will not disappear back into the political shadows and thge nation will not fade into the dark.
"This country has changed and changed utterly. And that is the change which will carry us forward - forward to independence."
Mr Salmond received a seven-minute standing ovation from delegates packed into Perth concert hall.
His emotional farewell was preceded by a biographical video charting his rise from Linlithgow schoolboy to Scotland's longest-serving First Minister.
He used his speech to warn that if the main UK parties failed to keep a promise to deliver extensive new powers for Holyrood, Scots would demand a second referendum.
"The UK parties should be in no doubt - give Scots the power we demand or Scotland will vote to take it," he said.
Mr Salmond also launched a fierce attack on Labour, anticipating next year's general election battle between the two parties.
Calling on the SNP to win the UK election in Scotland - a goal that would require the capture of 30 Westminster seats - he dismissed Labour as "intellectually bankrupt and politically hollow".
To huge applause from the SNP faithful, he added: "Let me spell out for the next Labour leader precisely why that part is in terminal decline.
"Labour didn't trust Scotland and Scotland doesn't trust Labour."
He welcomed a change in SNP rules, agreed minutes before he stood up to speak, allowing non-members to stand for the party at the next election, saying it would allow "shining stars of the Yes movement" to take seats.
Mr Salmond, who is considering running for Westminster himself but didn't give any details today, raised a laugh however when he joked he would not stand in Lewes, East Sussex - where his effigy was detonated on bonfire night.
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