What was going on when I was born?

CIUDAD DEL CARMEN, Mexico-- When the exploratory offshore well about 55 miles north of here, Ixtoc I, went out of control on June 3 last year, an embarrassed Mexican Government lamely observed that the disaster at least proved the vast oil potential beneath the Bay of Campeche.

Mayor Koch is expected to present the Financial Control Board today with a contingency financial plan calling for new layoffs, new taxes and a cutback in funds for such agencies as the Board of Education and the Health and Hospitals Corporation.

New Jersey's five-day-old ban on nonessential uses of water in 88 towns was extended yesterday to 11 more communities in the northern part of the state.

SEATTLE, Sept. 17--Dixy Lee Ray, the blunt-spoken iconoclast who almost single-handedly wrested the governorship from entrenched political powers of both parties four years ago to become the first woman to hold the office in Washington, lost the job yesterday as she had won it--her way.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17--Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, today defended his contacts with Billy Carter, but he was challenged by Senators with accusations of blundering and, in one instance, possibly lying.

WASHINGTON, Sept.17--The Environmental Protection Agency moved today to help the domestic auto industry by postponing certain pollution standards on motor vehicles, bringing to $600 million the projected savings to the industry that have been announced since July.

ASUNCION, Paraguay, Sept. 17-- Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the ousted ruler of Nicaragua, was ambushed and killed today when his car was hit by bazooka and machine-gun fire.

MAYOR Koch arrived by car on time carrying three-fifths of an Aaron Willard clock. Governor Carey came by air and limou sine a half-hour late ("there was fog over the Hudson") carrying a red rose--the symbol of New York State--plucked in the greenhouse of his Albany mansion.

Senator Jacob K. Javits yesterday won reaffirmation of support from the executive committee of the New York State United Teachers Union, but lost the backing of New York City's largest municipal union, District Council 37.

Stock prices surged amid hectic trading yesterday as most broad market measures set records and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed more than 15 points to challenge its recent three-and-a-half-year high.

BALTIMORE, Sept. 17--States that have imposed mandatory limits on the rates hospitals may charge have successfully begun to limit hospital cost increases, a team of researchers contended today in disclosing the results of a new national study.