Which way does rotor turn in the distributor?

Let's start with some basics. Do you have spark, and how exactly did you check for that?
Do you have a timing light and have you tried it "on the starter?"

Are you familiar with adjusting points? Any possibility the points are misajusted, or a mis-positioned wire connection is shorting them at the terminal? Are you sure the condenser is "good?"

Also, on a breaker points engine, you can easily set "static" timing in such a way that the engine should just fire right up, and be close "in time."

Rotate the engine until the rotor is "coming up" to the no1 tower. STOP the engine while watching for the timing marks, with the marks set at either where you want the timing set, or maybe 5 BTDC

Now either put a test lamp on the coil NEG, or use a spark gap tester hooked to the coil secondary wire. With the key "on" and the dist. loose, rotate the dist CW which is RETARD. Slowly rotate the dist CCW from there which is "towards advanced." At some point (carefully, slowly) while moving the dist body, either the test lamp should light, or you should get one single "snap" spark from the secondary test gap.

At that point, install the no1 wire wherever it is that the rotor is pointing, and run the firing order around from there.