I think you are missing the biggest problem: that the very question being asked tells you a lot about the future.
The student is up to 1939. One of the questions is “Will their be a war in Europe?”. But, I don’t even know of all the other (probably quite plentiful) examples of years in which it looked like a war was possible but did not happen. Would spending as much time on those “could have been wars” actually be useful or interesting? Maybe, I don’t know.
I think you are missing the biggest problem: that the very question being asked tells you a lot about the future.
The student is up to 1939. One of the questions is “Will their be a war in Europe?”. But, I don’t even know of all the other (probably quite plentiful) examples of years in which it looked like a war was possible but did not happen. Would spending as much time on those “could have been wars” actually be useful or interesting? Maybe, I don’t know.