Using WOULD vs simple past to talk about a person

Question

1. (KCRA news) More than a decade before she would become the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris was making a run for statewide office in California in a close contest.
2. (FORTUNE news) Mike Lynch was ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’—but the late tech millionaire would spend many of his final months under house arrest
3. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/prof_dengxiaoping.html#top) Wealthy Nationalists were financing the training of young revolutionaries in Moscow who would restore China's dignity. Among Deng's fellow students was Chiang Ching-kno, son of the Nationalist Party leader Chiang Kai-shek. Much later, in the 1980s, the younger Chiang would succeed his father as president of Taiwan... It was at this time that Deng, not known for his aphorisms, made his most famous statement: "It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice." Although he himself would later say he was not sure exactly what he had meant, it was very clearly an affirmation of pragmatism in economic policy in the aftermath of the fanaticism of the Great Leap. It was also a phrase that would find resonance around the world.

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My Questions: I have come across this structure many times when reading a famous person’s past history but I still don’t understand why WOULD is used instead of LATER + simple past.

Are the following correct (later + simple past )? What's the difference?

1. More than a decade before she became the Democratic presidential nominee…
2. … but the late tech millionaire later spent many of his final months under house arrest

… the younger Chiang later succeeded his father as president of Taiwan… … Although he himself later said he was not sure exactly what he had meant... …It was also a phrase that later found resonance around the world.

Answer 1

In most of these, it doesn’t matter, but in some it does

Each of these is talking about three events:

• An origin event - “making a run”, “[being] ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’”, “financing the training”, etc.
• An intermediate event - “[becoming] the Democratic presidential nominee”, “under house arrest”, “[restoring] Chin’s dignity”, etc.
• Now

Where the context anchors these events - “More than a decade before” and “[becoming] the Democratic presidential nominee” are fixed points in time - the simple past works just as well.

However, where the context leaves the events ‘floating’, there is a risk that the intermediate event could be conflated with either the originating event of now. Using “would” makes it clear that these are three seperate events.

So, for the second example, using “would” makes it clear that he was not under house arrest at the time of his death. If we used “spent”, it’s reasonable to conclude that he died in house arrest. Because, “house arrest” Is a continuing period of time, rather than an instant in time.

Answer 2

Consider:

As a teen, he wanted to be a jet pilot and he did succeed in that ambition, but he would go on to become an astronaut.

At the time of his being a jet pilot, astronaut was still in his future. would can be used with future-in-past scenarios.

As a teen, he wanted to be a jet pilot and he did succeed in that ambition, but he went on to become an astronaut.

went on refers to the same historical events but from the perspective of looking back at them, whereas would go on establishes a perspective of looking forward from some point in time in the past.