What was going on when I was born?

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10--In the computer index kept by the clerk of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in downtown Manhattan, the case is cited as 79 Civ. 6644. It is also known as Chase Manhattan Bank v. Islamic Republic of Iran.

Governor Carey and his Transportation Commissioner, William C. Hennessy, gave differing explanations yesterday about how New York State had decided to seize the land of a dentist who was building a home next to the Governor's summer home on Shelter Island.

A yearlong, $654,000 project to refurbish the Maine Memorial at Columbus Circle was completed yesterday when a 140-ton crane lifted the seven-ton bronze statue of "Columbia Triumphant" back atop its marble base at the southwest entrance to Central Park.

LONDON, Nov. 10--Michael Foot, an intellectual left-wing Socialist who is devoted to nuclear disarmament, was elected leader of Britain's Labor Party today.

AS critics of sex therapy increasingly demand to see proof that it works, definitive statistics have remained elusive. An examination of case histories suggests one reason: Success or failure of the therapy, like sex itself, is a subjective thing.

ON May 25, 1979, an obscure county judge sent shock waves through the academic establishment. College trustees and presidents turned apoplectic when Judge John W. Keller of the Court of Com mon Pleas serving Franklin and Fulton Counties in Pennsylvania ordered the board of Wilson College, in Chambersburg, to desist from its plan to shut down the 110-year-old liberal arts college for women.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (AP)--The Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Board said today that it did not expect the auto maker to attain the profit in the fourth quarter that Chrysler had projected.

The administration of Ronald Reagan is likely to delay any action on the elimination of the Department of Education, a key plank of the Republican Party platform, according to Mr. Reagan's advisers on educational policy.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10--The United States sent a high-level delegation to Algeria today to convey a formal American response to Iran's conditions for the release of the 52 hostages held in Teheran.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10--The International Trade Commission of the United States voted today that Japanese automobile imports were not causing serious injury to the domestic car industry, thus rejecting a petition for import quotas and higher tariffs by the United Automobile Workers and the Ford Motor Company.