What was going on when I was born?

PARIS, Sept. 1--The European Economic Community ordered a penalty duty on fast-growing imports of American polyester yarn today as ministers from the nine member nations returned from their August holiday.

TUSCUMBIA, Ala., Sept. 1--President Carter, opening his re-election campaign in an industrial and farming region of his native South, denounced the Ku Klux Klan at a Labor Day rally this afternoon and declared that the United States had been "inspired and gratified" by the gains made by workers this weekend in Poland.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1--A coalition of auto industry suppliers, joining in a campaign to curb imports of Japanese cars, has produced a lobbying battle plan that offers a rare glimpse into the way private companies operate to influence Washington decisions.

JERSEY CITY, Sept. 1--With the Statue of Liberty providing a background, Ronald Reagan formally began his fall campaign today with an attack on President Carter's economic policies that, aides say, is to be his main theme for the next two weeks.

WASHINGTON WITH all the evidence pointing to an enormous glut of medical doctors over the next decade, a high-level panel convened by the Federal Government is ex pected this week to urge stern measures to cut down the oversupply and to steer new physicians out of surgery, obstetrics and other badly overcrowded medical specialties.

The 21-year-old stagehand suspected in the murder of the violinist Helen Hagnes acknowledged in a videotaped statement to the police last Friday that he was alone with Miss Hagnes on a backstage elevator the night she was slain at the Metropolitan Opera House, but he denied having killed her, sources close to the investigation said yesterday.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 1--For months Edgar F. Kaiser Jr., the 38year-old chairman of the Kaiser Steel Corporation and grandson of the late construction industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, has been dismissing speculation that the beleaguered steel company would be liquidated.

MONTREAL, Sept. 1--The outlook was bleak for Canadair Ltd., Canada's largest aircraft company, when its directors met early in 1976.

TUCSON, Ariz. BY measuring annual tree rings in groves scattered across the Western states, scientists here are seeking to define the likelihood of prolonged and extreme drought for each of nine river basins in that region.

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ON Feb. 25, 1978, Eileen Stevens was notified that her 20-year-old son had died from a brutal hazing "test" during a fraternity's initiation rites. Chuck Stemzel, her son by a previous marriage, had been locked in a car trunk, not to be released until he had consumed a pint of bourbon, a bottle of wine and a six-pack of beer.

The first car of a new Ford generation, a bright yellow two-door hatchback, rolls off the assembly line this morning at the Ford Motor Company's newly retooled plant in Metuchen, N.J. The event will be marked by optimistic speeches and considerable excitement, with Ford's chairman, Philip Caldwell, and a bevy of Government officials attending.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1--Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie has written to Iran's new Prime Minister asking that the Iranian Parliament act to bring about the early release of the 52 American hostages, the State Department said today.