When Admiral Columbus returned to the island of Hispaniola in 1493, at the head of seventeen ships, he found Fort Navidad, which just a few months before he had left well garrisoned, burned, surrounded by floating corpses and no survivors. A gateway to hell had been opened in paradise. After this terrible start, the story of those who today are world history begins: Columbus, the pilot Juan de la Cosa and his great friend the brave Captain Ojeda, the Niños and the Pinzones, Ponce de León, Bartolomé de las Casas, Ovando, Núñez de Balboa and Vespucio, and also of the chiefs Guacanagarí and Caonabo and of the beautiful and tragic Anacaona. Of Cortes, Pizarro and Alvarado, still waiting to leave and undertake the greatest conquests, and also of the cabin boys Trifoncillo and Alonso, of the loquacious tavern keeper Escabeche and his wife the Indian Triana, and even of the dogs Becerrillo and Leoncico. All of them at the same time and place. All of them at the same landing, sword in hand in