How Do I Get My HTML Files Displayed?!

:p This shouldn't feel so enigmatic, but it does. I have had working HTML files sitting on my harddrive for a long time, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to host them on this site in a navigable manner. Oh; they're uploaded to the "File Management" section, but I need to log in to see them. What I am trying to do is make one of those files the page one gets when they plug in the address "http://thomascircleediting.altervista.org/" So far, it's just the "Coming Soon" page that prompts me to log in.

Sorry to ask what is likely an extremely basic question, but I've been out of the web development loop since before Geocities went down; things seem to have changed, and it's all quite overwhelming. Please help if you can.

Your site homepage is managed by a page that must be called index.html or index.php and must be placed in your website's main folder.

Thanks. One of my HTML files has now been renamed to index.html; is it just a matter of time now before it shows up as the homepage?

I have uploaded and even copy/pasted my index.html file to my directory but Welcome to Altervista is the page I keep getting, view source shows their code, not mine, the tabe says Coming Soon (yes, I clicked save and apply). I'm completely frustrated as I've never had issues like this on other servers (granted they are not free). Have I missed something to activate my page?

Did you empty your browser's cache?