(340–338 BC) was a conflict between the Roman Republic and its neighbors the Latin peoples of ancient Italy. It ended in the dissolution of the Latin League, and incorporation of its territory into the Roman sphere of influence, with the Latins gaining partial rights and varying levels of citizenship.

A push by the Latin people for independence from Rome was the main impetus for starting the war. In 340 BC, an embassy was sent to the Roman Senate to ask for the formation of a single republic between Rome and Latium, with both parties on the same level. Since Rome had been, in the previous years, the leader of the Latin League, it refused to put the Latin people on her same level and to accept Latins in the Roman Senate. With Rome’s refusal, the war began. The Romans had been fighting alongside the Latin and Campanian peoples against the Samnites in the First Samnite War when the Romans withdrew from the war. The Latins continued fighting beside the Campanians, while Rome switched sides, joining the Samnites to attack the Latins. Only the Laurentes in Latium and the equites of Campania adhered to the Romans, who on their part found support among the Paeligni.

The Latins entered Samnium; the Roman-Samnite army moved to the Fucine Lake, then, avoiding Latium, entered the Campanian territory and attacked the Latins and Campanians near Mount Vesuvius. In the Battle of Vesuvius, the Romans, under consuls Decius Mus and T. Manlius Torquatus Imperiosus, defeated the Latins. According to Roman sources, Manlius reinstated army discipline by executing his son for his unintentional disobedience, while Decius sacrificed his own life to the gods for the Roman victory.

One year later, Manlius defeated the Latins at the Battle of Trifanum. The Latins, forced to leave Campania, moved to Latium, where they put up a long yet unsuccessful resistance against the Roman forces. The defeated Latin peoples were obliged to recognize Roman pre-eminence. Some of the Latin towns were Romanized, others became partially Roman, adopting Roman magistratures, while some others became Roman colonies.

In our nineteenth century, England has increased its colonial empire — the largest the world has seen since the days of the Romans — further and further; the French have put down roots in North Africa and East Africa and created for themselves a new empire in the Far East; Russia has begun its mighty course of victory in Asia, leading it to the high plateau of the Pamir and to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. Four years ago the Sino-Japanese war, scarcely one and a half years ago the Spanish-American War have put things further in motion; they’ve led to great, momentous, far-reaching decisions, shaken old empires, and added new and serious ferment. […] The English prime minister said a long time ago that the strong states were getting stronger and stronger and the weak ones weaker and weaker. […] We don’t want to step on the toes of any foreign power, but at the same time we don’t want our own feet tramped by any foreign power (Bravo!) and we don’t intend to be shoved aside by any foreign power, not in political nor in economic terms.(Lively applause.) It is time, high time, that we […] make it clear in our own minds what stance we have to take and how we need to prepare ourselves in the face of the processes taking place around us which carry the seeds within them for the restructuring of power relationships for the unforeseeable future. To stand inactively to one side, as we have done so often in the past, either from native modesty (Laughter) or because we were completely absorbed in our own internal arguments or for doctrinaire reasons — to stand dreamily to one side while other people split up the pie, we cannot and we will not do that. (Applause.) We cannot for the simple reason that we now have interests in all parts of the world. […] The rapid growth of our population, the unprecedented blossoming of our industries, the hard work of our merchants, in short the mighty vitality of the German people have woven us into the world economy and pulled us into international politics. If the English speak of a ‘Greater Britain;’ if the French speak of a ‘Nouvelle France;’ if the Russians open up Asia; then we, too, have the right to a greater Germany (Bravo! from the right, laughter from the left), not in the sense of conquest, but indeed in the sense of peaceful extension of our trade and its infrastructures. […] We cannot and will not permit that the order of the day passes over the German people […] There is a lot of envy present in the world against us (calls from the left), political envy and economic envy. There are individuals and there are interest groups, and there are movements, and there are perhaps even peoples that believe that the German was easier to have around and that the German was more pleasant for his neighbors in those earlier days, when, in spite of our education and in spite of our culture, foreigners looked down on us in political and economic matters like cavaliers with their noses in the air looking down on the humble tutor. (Very true! - Laughter.) These times of political faintness and economic and political humility should never return (Lively Bravo.) We don’t ever again want to become, as Friedrich List put it, the ’slaves of humanity.’ But we’ll only be able to keep ourselves at the fore if we realize that there is no welfare for us without power, without a strong army and a strong fleet. (Very true! from the right; objections from the left ) The means, gentlemen, for a people of almost 60 million — dwelling in the middle of Europe and, at the same time, stretching its economic antennae out to all sides — to battle its way through in the struggle for existence without strong armaments on land and at sea, have not yet been found. (Very true! from the right.) In the coming century the German people will be a hammer or an anvil.

Union General Henry W. Benham was arrested for the Battle of Secessionville. The attack had not been approved.

On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark–the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.

The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.

Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.

Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations…has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.”

*Churchill must be spinning in his grave.

The Armilustrium was a festival in honor of Mars, the god of war, celebrated on October 21. On this day the weapons of the soldiers were ritually purified and stored for winter. The army would be assembled and reviewed in the Circus Maximus, garlanded with flowers and the trumpets (tubae) would be played as part of the purification rites. The Romans gathered with their arms and armour on the Aventine Hill, and held a procession with torches and sacrificial animals. The dancing priests of Mars known as the Salii may also have taken part in the ceremony.

Armilustrium also refers to a large open space on the Aventine Hill where the festival was held.

The next morning (possibly September 28, but the exact date is unknown), the Persians were exhausted from searching for the Greeks all night, but they sailed in to the straits anyway to attack the Greek fleet. The Corinthian ships under Adeimantus immediately retreated, drawing the Persians further into the straits after them; although the Athenians later felt this was due to cowardice, the Corinthians had most likely been instructed to feign a retreat by Themistocles. Nevertheless none of the other Greek ships dared to attack, until one Greek trireme quickly rammed the lead Persian ship. At this, the rest of the Greeks joined the attack.

As at Artemisium, the much larger Persian fleet could not manoeuvre in the gulf, and a smaller contingent of Athenian and Aeginan triremes flanked the Persian navy. The Persians tried to turn back, but a strong wind sprang up and trapped them; those that were able to turn around were also trapped by the rest of the Persian fleet that had jammed the strait. The Greek and Persian ships rammed each other and something similar to a land battle ensued. Both sides had marines on their ships (the Greeks with fully armed hoplites), and arrows and javelins also flew across the narrow strait. The chief Persian admiral Ariamenes rammed Themistocles’ ship, but in the hand-to-hand combat that followed Ariamenes was killed by a Greek foot soldier.

Only about 100 of the heavier Persian triremes could fit into the gulf at a time, and each successive wave was disabled or destroyed by the lighter Greek triremes. At least 200 Persian ships were sunk, including one by Artemisia, who apparently switched sides in the middle of the battle to avoid being captured and ransomed by the Athenians. Aristides also took another small contingent of ships and recaptured Psyttaleia, a nearby island that the Persians had occupied a few days earlier. It is said that it was the Immortals, the elite Persian Royal Guard, who during the battle had to evacuate to Psyttaleia after their ships sank: they were slaughtered to a man. According to Herodotus, the Persians suffered many more casualties than the Greeks because the Persians did not know how to swim; one of the Persian casualties was a brother of Xerxes. Those Persians who survived and ended up on shore were killed by the Greeks who found them.

Xerxes, sitting ashore upon his golden throne, witnessed the horror. He remarked that Artemisia was the only general to show any productive bravery ramming and destroying nine Athenian triremes, saying, “My female general has become a man, and my male generals all become women.”

Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla were two very different men whose paths converged first on the battlefield and then in the political arena. Marius was a novus homo from Arpinum whose ancestors were from a moderately distinguished equestrian background. He made a name for himself by not only capturing King Jugurtha of Numidia, but also by doing it his own way. Gaius Marius was responsible for employing the capite censi in his army, who until this point was not allowed to serve because of outdated property qualifications. One might even argue (with justification) that this revolution led to the downfall of the Republic. In this Jugurthan War, Marius had a lieutenant named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It is commonly believed that Marius’ victory was due in large part to this man. Sulla was of the old patrician Cornelian family, but of the lineage that had not established itself in recent Roman politics. Sulla was a harsh and unfeeling man who is said to have made his money by killing both his step-mother and his mistress. He was well known for his blazing red hair and his two canine teeth that he would bare when angry.

At first, the two excellent Roman military geniuses got along well with each other, but when Marius took almost sole credit for the Jugurthan victory and gave almost no attention to Sulla’s efforts, the latter became very bitter with his former general. Sulla then went on to distinguish himself in the Social War and was also given the command in the war against Mithridates of Pontus in 88. This command was then overturned in the Senate by Marius’ ally Publius Sulpicius Rufus, whom had it transferred to Marius. The seeds of conflict were sown.

Sulla immediately rushed back to Rome from Asia and took control of the city by methods that were incredibly harsh by even Roman military standards. Sulla had Sulpicius Rufus murdered along with several other Marian supporters (Marius fled to Africa) and passed several laws a vi before leaving for what he hoped would be a lucrative campaign in Greece.

One of the new consuls immediately had Marius recalled to Rome and the two attacked the allies of Sulla and eventually captured the city. What followed was a slaughter like none other seen at that time. Marius and his army (remember the capite censi??) terrorized Rome while Sulla conquered much of the Aegean and Asia Minor. Marius was named consul for a record seventh time but died soon after.

In 84 BC, Sulla renewed the civil war against the Marians, which he won soundly after his victory at the Colline Gate, and entered Rome as Dictator under the law of interrex. He then proceeded to gain immunity for all of his actions past and present and created a new kind of slaughter by posting proscription lists that itemized every Roman citizen Sulla wanted dead because of suspected Marian loyalties. In all, Sulla killed 10,000 people through the civil war and his proscriptions.

Despite this horrible onslaught, over the next three years, Sulla reformed much of the Roman political system to the benefit of the state and was hailed as Rome’s savior by most of Rome. When Sulla died in 78 amidst retirement in Campania, after finishing his consulship of 79 and holding elections for the next year, a massive state funeral was given to him and his life was celebrated. It can be correctly argued that the Sullan reforms staved off the end of the Republic for another fifty years.

The Jewish state comes to an end in 70 AD, when the Romans begin to actively drive Jews from the home they had lived in for over a millennium. But the Jewish Diaspora (”diaspora” =”dispersion, scattering”) had begun long before the Romans had even dreamed of Judaea. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722, the Hebrew inhabitants were scattered all over the Middle East; these early victims of the dispersion disappeared utterly from the pages of history. However, when Nebuchadnezzar deported the Judaeans in 597 and 586 BC, he allowed them to remain in a unified community in Babylon. Another group of Judaeans fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. So from 597 onwards, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: a group in Babylon and other parts of the Middle East, a group in Judaea, and another group in Egypt. Thus, 597 is considered the beginning date of the Jewish Diaspora. While Cyrus the Persian allowed the Judaeans to return to their homeland in 538 BC, most chose to remain in Babylon. A large number of Jews in Egypt became mercenaries in Upper Egypt on an island called the Elephantine. All of these Jews retained their religion, identity, and social customs; both under the Persians and the Greeks, they were allowed to run their lives under their own laws. Some converted to other religions; still others combined the Yahweh cult with local cults; but the majority clung to the Hebraic religion and its new-found core document, the Torah.

In 63 BC, Judaea became a protectorate of Rome. Coming under the administration of a governor, Judaea was allowed a king; the governor’s business was to regulate trade and maximize tax revenue. While the Jews despised the Greeks, the Romans were a nightmare. Governorships were bought at high prices; the governors would attempt to squeeze as much revenue as possible from their regions and pocket as much as they could. Even with a Jewish king, the Judaeans revolted in 70 AD, a desperate revolt that ended tragically. In 73 AD, the last of the revolutionaries were holed up in a mountain fort called Masada; the Romans had besieged the fort for two years, and the 1,000 men, women, and children inside were beginning to starve. In desperation, the Jewish revolutionaries killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans. The Romans then destroyed Jerusalem, annexed Judaea as a Roman province, and systematically drove the Jews from Palestine. After 73 AD, Hebrew history would only be the history of the Diaspora as the Jews and their world view spread over Africa, Asia, and Europe

Deposed in 1399, Richard was murdered while in prison, the first casualty of the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Henry IV (1399-1413 AD) Henry IV was born at Bolingbroke in 1367 to John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. He married Mary Bohun in 1380, who bore him seven children before her death in 1394. In 1402, Henry remarried, taking as his bride Joan of Navarre.

“It is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood”.

BENITO MUSSOLINI - CLARA PETACCI - PAVINI

“War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace. “

1799 George Washington, the first president of the United States, died in Mount Vernon, Va., at age 67.

2003 Al Gore concedes the presidential election.

1981 Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967.

SEE THE FILM 

YOUR WELCOME.

1968 NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a game to air a TV special, “Heidi,” on schedule. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Oakland Raiders come from behind to beat the New York Jets 43-32.

Mars, in Roman religion and mythology, god of war. In early Roman times he was a god of agriculture, but in later religion (when he was identified with the Greek ARES) he was primarily associated with war. Mars was the father of Romulus, the founder of the Roman nation, and, next to Jupiter, he enjoyed the highest position in Roman religion. The Salii, his priests, honored him by dancing in full armor in the Campus Martius, the site of his altar. Chariot races and the sacrifice of animals were primary features of the festivals held in his honor in March (named for him) and October. Mars was represented as an armed warrior. His attributes include the spear and shield, and the wolf and woodpecker were sacred to him. He was frequently associated  with Bellona the Roman goddess of war.

1787 The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper.

1904 The first rapid transit subway opened, in New York City.

1967 Expo ‘67 closed in Montreal.

U.S. TAKES POSSESSION  OF ALASKA

On this day in 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiasticly expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson.

Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote, sparsely populated and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it in battle with a rival such as Great Britain. Negotiations between Seward (1801-1872) and the Russian minister to the U.S., Eduard de Stoeckl, began in March 1867. However, the American public believed the land to be barren and worthless and dubbed the purchase “Seward’s Folly” and “Andrew Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden,” among other derogatory names. Some animosity toward the project may have been a byproduct of President Johnson’s own unpopularity. As the 17th U.S. president, Johnson battled with Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction policies following the Civil War. He was impeached in 1868 and later acquitted by a single vote. Nevertheless, Congress eventually ratified the Alaska deal.
Public opinion of the purchase turned more favorable when gold was discovered in a tributary of Alaska’s Klondike River in 1896, sparking a gold rush. Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, and is now recognized for its vast natural resources. Today, 25 percent of America’s oil and over 50 percent of its seafood come from Alaska. It is also the largest state in area, about one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined, though it remains sparsely populated.
The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut word alyeska, which means “great land.” Alaska has two official state holidays to commemorate its origins: Seward’s Day, observed the last Monday in March, celebrates the March 30, 1867, signing of the land treaty between the U.S. and Russia, and Alaska Day, observed every October 18, marks the anniversary of the formal land transfer.

“Terror is nought but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is less a particular principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to the most pressing needs of the fatherland.”

Maximillien Marie Isidore de Robespierre
Address, National Convention, 1794

The origin of the city’s name is unknown, with several theories already circulating in Antiquity; the most likely is derived from Greek language Ρώμη meaning braveness, courage; probably the connection is with a root *rum-, “teat”, with possible reference to the totem wolf (Latin lupa, a word also meaning “prostitute”) that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus are believed to come from the people of Lavinium. Romulus killed Remus and founded Rome. While Romulus would seem to be an eponymous founder legend (the name means “Little Roman”), Remus derives from the Proto-Indo-European myth of the slain twin-god (Germanic Ymir, and Indo-Iranian Yama). The Basque scholar Manuel de Larramendi thought that the origin could be related to the Basque language word orma (modern Basque horma), “wall”.

In the past few decades further progress in the Etruscan language and the archaeology of Italy made the above theories less likely, and made more definitive hypotheses possible. We know now that Etruscan was spoken from what became Rhaetia in the Alps through Etruria to include Latium all the way south to Capua. The Italic tribes intruded into Latium from a core Italic region in the central mountains, into which they had moved from the east coast. Regardless of the circumstances of Rome’s founding, its original population was certainly a combination of Etruscan and Italic elements, with the Etruscan predominating. Gradually Italic infiltration increased to a flood and overwhelmed the Etruscans; that is, the Etruscan population within and outside Rome assimilated to Italic.

Etruscan gives us the word Rumach, “from Rome”, from which Ruma can be extracted. Its further etymology, as is that of most Etruscan words, remains unknown. That it might mean “teat” is pure speculation. Its later mythological associations cast doubt upon that meaning; after all, none of the original settlers was raised by wolves, and the founders were unlikely to have been familiar with this myth about themselves. The name, Tiberius, may well contain the name of the Tiber. It is believed now to be from an Etruscan name, Thefarie, in which case Tiber would be from *Thefar.

The most telling evidence comes from the people themselves. In the expression, Senatus populusque Romanus, “populus” is of Etruscan origin. The place name, Populonia, is from Etruscan Pupluna or Fufluna. Related to populus is the typical Roman praenomen (personal name) of Publius, from Puplie.

Indeed the whole history of early Rome is the story of the struggle between the original families and the newcomers. The praenomina of those families give them away as Etruscan in origin; for example, Gaius, deriving from Cai. It was used by the Julian gens among others. We do not have a derivation of Julus, the mythical founder of the gens, but he is supposed to have been Etruscan. The Etruscans also had a word for gentes, which was lautun. It is not known if this is the origin of Latins, but the etymologizing of most such words pertaining to early Rome has been difficult and resistive, which is likely to mean that they are not Indo-European.

UNABOMBER MANIFESTO PUBLISHED

On this day in 1995, a manifesto by the Unabomber, an anti-technology
terrorist, is published by The New York Times and Washington Post in
the hope that someone will recognize the person who, for 17 years, had
been sending homemade bombs through the mail that had killed and
maimed innocent people around the United States. After reading the
manifesto, David Kaczynski linked the writing style to that of his
older brother Ted, who was later convicted of the attacks and
sentenced to life in prison without parole. All told, the Unabomber
was responsible for murdering three people and injuring another 23.

Theodore John Kaczynski was born May 22, 1942, in Evergreen Park,
Illinois, a Chicago suburb. As a student, he excelled at math,
graduated from Harvard and received a Ph.D. in math from the
University of Michigan. In 1967, he got a teaching job at the
University of California at Berkeley, but quit two years later. In
1971, Kaczynski purchased some property in Lincoln, Montana, with his
brother. There, the future Unabomber built a small, secluded cabin
where he lived off the land as a recluse from the late 1970s until his
arrest on April 3, 1996.

In May 1978, an unmailed package was found in a University of
Illinois, Chicago, parking lot; a security guard was later injured
when he opened the package. The following year, another bomb exploded
at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, injuring one
person. In November of that same year, 12 people on an American
Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., were treated for
smoke inhalation when a bomb in a mailbag aboard the plane caught
fire. Investigators eventually linked the three incidents, as the
bombings continued and spread around the country. In December 1985,
the owner of a computer store in Sacramento, California, was killed by
a bomb filled with nail fragments. After a similar explosion in Salt
Lake City two years later, investigators got their first eyewitness
description of the bomber after someone reported seeing a man in
aviator sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt at the scene of the crime.
In April 1995, The New York Times received a letter from the Unabomber
stating that the killings would stop if the paper printed a
35,000-word manifesto. In September of that year, the Times and the
Post complied, and David Kaczynski eventually recognized his brother
Ted’s writing as that of the Unabomber and contacted the FBI.

In January 1998, Kaczynski agreed to a plea bargain with the government and was sentenced to life in prison.

THE UNABOMBER MANIFESTO 

On this day in 1776, General George Washington arrives at Harlem Heights, on the northern end of Manhattan, and takes command of a group of retreating Continental troops. The day before, 4,000 British soldiers had landed at Kip’s Bay in Manhattan (near present-day 34^th Street) and taken control of the island, driving the Continentals north, where they appeared to be in disarray prior to Washington’s arrival.

In the early morning hours of September 16, 1776, General Washington ordered the Continentals to hold their line at Harlem Heights while he sent Captain Thomas Knowlton and a volunteer group of Rangers to scout British movements and possibly lure the British into combat. While Captain Knowlton and the Rangers engaged the British in a frontal assault, Washington sent a second force of Patriots to attack the British from their right flank. During the short but intense fighting that ensued, the Americans were able to force a small British retreat from their northern positions.

Despite the American failure to stop the British invasion of New York City the previous day at Kip’s Bay, the successful Battle of Harlem Heights restored public confidence in the American troops and lifted the spirits of the Continental Army. The Americans and British each lost approximately 70 troops in the fighting. One of the Americans lost was the Ranger leader, Captain Thomas Knowlton.

In a tiny storefront social club at 57 Rapelye Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, on a frozen November night in 1992, five people were shot, two fatally: Salvatore Sparacino, a longshoreman, who died at Long Island College Hospital, and John Marella, the club’s cook, who was declared dead at the scene. Sparacino’s son, John, was critically wounded but lived.

As detectives and police photographers came and went, an officer left the door of the club open for a moment, and we got a glimpse of Marella’s feet spread apart in heavy black shoes pointed at the ceiling. Here was murder at its most cinematic: the bloodiness and gore and bullet wounds were hidden by the door, we saw only enough to know that a man lay there who was very dead.

The plot unfolded backward. Days before, an armed gang had robbed $100,000 from the Sealand shipping terminal in Newark. Investigators looked at a variety of motives for the Red Hook shooting, including a link to the Sealand terminal robbery or a neighborhood dispute.

Someone was very angry and stayed that way. John Sparacino was stabbed on New Year’s Eve 1992, but again survived. He was shot a second time — hit on the forearm — on May 11, 1994, while standing on the corner of Columbia and Rapelye Streets, a few doors down from the club. Finally, that August, his body was found in a burning car in Staten Island with a bullet in the head.

and…

Thermite
by the Jolly Roger
edited by Invisible Avenger

Get an Ac=>DC (aka simply DC) converter. Cut the connector off, separate the wires, and strip them both
Acquire jar of water with a tablespoon or so of sodium chloride (aka table salt) added to it.
This makes the water electrically conductive

Plug in converter and put both ends in saltwater solution and let them sit for five minutes.
One of them will start bubbling more than the other. This is the POSITIVE(+) wire.
If you do not do this test right, the final product will be the opposite (chemically) of rust, which is RUST ACID.
You have no use for this in regards thermite (although it IS useful for many other purposes).

Place the nail, tied to the positive wire, into the jar. Now put the negative wire in the other end.
Now let it sit overnight and in the morning scrape the rust off of the nail.
Repeat until you got a bunch of rust on the bottom of the glass. Be generous with your rust collection.
If you are going through the trouble of making thermite, you might as well make a lot
Now remove the excess water and pour the crusty solution onto a cookie sheet. Dry it in the sun for a few hours, or inside overnight.
It should be an orange-brown color although it may range from black to yellow to deep red.
Sometimes the allotrope (color) varies, but it is still iron oxide.
Crush the rust nto a fine powder and heat it in a cast-iron pot until it is red.
Now mix the pure iron oxide with pure aluminum filings, which can be bought or filed down by hand from an aluminum tube or bar.
The ratio or iron oxide to aluminum is 8 grams to 3 grams
Congratulations on producing thermite. A quick note, however, in regards ignition:
Thermite requires a LOT of heat (more than a blow torch!) to ignite.
However, magnesium ribbon (available online or in certain stores) will do the trick.
Thermite requires intense heat such as from burning magnesium to light.
To test, pour a fifty-cent sized pile onto a car hood, stick the ribbon in it, and light the ribbon with a lighter or handheld butane torch.
Stand far back and smile as you watch it burn through the hood, the block, the axle, and into the pavement.

BE CAREFUL!
Chemically perfect ratios of pure iron (III) oxide: 25.3% aluminum and 74.7% iron (III) oxide (by mass)
or with iron (II,III) oxide: 23.7% aluminum and 76.3% iron (II, III) oxide (by mass)

can vaporize thick CARBON STEEL *and is sometimes used in controlled demolition.

*addtion by editor

“The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.“

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender — Integrated Training in the Military.

1781 Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers.

2004 More than 1,100 people were taken hostage by heavily armed Chechen militants at a school in Beslan in southern Russia; more than 330 people, most of them children, were killed during the three-day ordeal.

NEVER SAY NEVER..