Answer:
According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and a tower “with its top in the heavens.” God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another.
Answer: In the West, Americans found a lot of land to expand, new species of plants and animals, and access to the Pacific Ocean. Because of their access to the largest body of water on the planet, international trade was possible (but wouldn't begin for another 75 or so years, assuming that this is in the mid-1800s).
Scorched Earth policy. The Russians burned whatever they couldn't take with them. In that period, lots of supplies were gained through scavenging and taking from the locals, but with everything destroyed, the French had no supplies bar what was being sent to them, but the further into Russia they got, the longer it took for supplies to catch up.<span />