The present indicative tense can readily be used to refer to past events, as the following paragraph shows.

Excerpt from a news article:Corre el año de 1348 y una terrible epidemia de peste asuela la ciudad de Florencia. Los muertos son tan numerosos que apenas da tiempo a enterrarlos. Se abren fosas comunes, se aprovechan los ataúdes para meter varios cuerpos a la vez, las ceremonias religiosas se multiplican inútilmente y el horror invade las calles y la vida cotidiana de la gente.

Source: The Spanish newspaper El País, retrieved Sept. 13, 2014.

Suggested translation: It's the year 1348 and a terrible epidemic of the plague is devastating the city of Florence. The dead are so numerous that there is barely time to bury them. Mass graves are dug, coffins are used for several bodies at a time, religious ceremonies abound uselessly, and the horror overwhelms the streets and daily lives of the people.

Key grammatical issue: The excerpt demonstrates the use of the historic present tense (el presente histórico or el presente narrativo in Spanish). The historic present is used in Spanish much as it is in English and is commonly used in historical accounts or in telling stories. One reason for using the historic present is to make a stronger connection with the reader or listener; the present tense helps establish a sense of immediacy. You'll find it in both fiction and historical accounts.

Other notes on vocabulary and grammar:

• Although correr usually means "to run" in the sense of rapidly moving oneself on foot, it can be used with periods of time to indicate merely that they are occurring. Thus the opening few words could have been translated more literally as "the year 1348 was occurring." The shorter and more direct translation was used for sake of brevity.

• Note that the adjectiveterrible is placed before the nounepidemia. Because of its strong emotional connotation, this is very common with terrible.
• Asolar, usually translated as "to devastate" or "to destroy," is conjugated here as asuela because it is a stem-changing verb. As with contar, the o of the stem becomes ue when stressed.
• Florence, Italy, is one of many European cities whose name is slightly different in Spanish than in English. And its name in Italian — Firenze — is different still.
• Los muertos is an example of using a definite article, in this case los, to change an adjective into a noun. The same thing is done in the English translation.
• It is common, as done here, to translate tan as "so" to emphasize the meaning of the adjective that follows.
• Apenas is a common word that typically means "barely," "hardly" or "scarcely."
• "Dartiempo a" is an idiom that usually means "to have time for."
• Enterrarlos is an example of attaching a pronoun, in this case los, to an infinitive, in this case enterrar.
• The first half of the final sentence uses three reflexive verbs — se abren, se aprovechan and se multiplican. As the translation shows, reflexive verbs are often used as a way of not indicating directly who is performing the action of the verb.
• Although abrir usually means "to open," it can be used in a much broader sense than the English verb. Although it would be possible to say that graves were "opened up," "dug" would be more often said.
• In normal use, fosa común is often used to mean a common grave, i.e., a poor person's grave. However, the context here demands a different understanding, so común ends up with a meaning closer to "communal" than to "common."
• Aprovechar often carries the idea of putting something to good use or getting the most of something. For the sake of brevity, this nuance of its meaning, already implied by the context, was left out of the suggested translation.
• A lavez is a common idiom usually meaning "at the same time."
• Although multiplicar often means "to multiply," it is used to refer to a simple increase more often than its English cognate.
• Invadir could also be translated as "to invade."
• Calle as a noun almost always means "street." However, it can also refer to general public opinion similar to the way that "street" is used in the phrase "heard on the street." In other words, las calles might be understood here as less literal than the translation might suggest.
• Gente is an example of a collective noun — it is grammatically singular although plural in meaning.