On this day (January 17) in 1806, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, Martha, gave birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House. During World War II in 1944, Allied forces launched the first of four battles for Monte Cassino in Italy. More than 6,000 people were killed in 1995 when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe (koh-bay), Japan.