In this monograph wepresent a review of a number of recent results on the motion of a classical body immersed in an infinitely extended medium and subjected to the action of an external force. We investigate this topic in the framework of mathematical physics by focusing mainly on the class of purely Hamiltonian systems, for which very few results are available.We discuss two cases: when the medium is a gas and when it is a fluid. In the first case, the aim is to obtain microscopic models of viscous friction. In the second, we seek to underline some non-trivial features of the motion.