What was going on when I was born?

TEHERAN, Iran, Nov. 28--Who is holding the American hostages remained a mystery today as an Iranian official said he could not confirm reports that the Islamic militants occupying the American Embassy had surrendered their captives to the Iranian Government.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28--The Beatrice Foods Company was ordered today to divest itself of Tropicana Products, the nation's largest citrus juice processor, and to turn over Tropicana's recent profits to the United States Treasury.

NEWARK, Nov. 28--A police officer tried to stop a bank robbery while on his lunch hour today and was shot and then kicked as he lay dying on the floor.

MOSCOW, Nov. 28--Senator Charles H. Percy said tonight that he expected the United States and the Soviet Union to open discussions "soon" on a new strategic arms limitation treaty to replace the treaty signed last year by the two countries but not ratified.

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 28--William E. Simon, who had been President-elect Ronald Reagan's first choice to return to his old job as Treasury Secretary, has removed himself from consideration for any post in the incoming cabinet, Mr. Reagan said today.

MADISON, Wis., Nov. 26--Wisconsin is buying abandoned railroad lines and leasing them to new short-line operators. New Jersey has acquired a major commuter bus company in an effort to make it operate more efficiently. Iowa, New York and other states are investing ...

The Fire Department's chief medical officer was charged yesterday with having treated private patients at his Brooklyn office when he should have been on duty at the department's clinic in Manhattan.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28--Presidentelect Ronald Reagan's advisers on Latin America have assured visitors from El Salvador that the new administration will increase military aid, including combat equipment, to security forces fighting leftist guerrillas.

Early Christmas shoppers might have been tempted to buy an ark for "the man who has everything" yesterday as New York began its annual monthlong bout of gift buying. The fortunate ones were those with a long weekend who could look out at the morning deluge of sleety, icy rain (good for the parched reservoirs), pop an Alka Seltzer into a glass and go back to bed, dining later on Thanksgiving leftovers.

WARSAW, Nov. 28--A document leaked from the general prosecutor's office that led to a strike call in Warsaw is a 13-page report entitled: "Methods of Pursuing Participants in Illegal, Anti-Socialist Activities."

PEKING, Nov. 28--One of the candidates asserts in his campaign leaflets that he will work to fight the "decaying, reactionary feudalism" that still affects China.

PEKING, Nov. 28 (UPI)--Chen Boda, the man who helped build a cult of personality around Mao Zedong, confessed today to orchestrating a campaign of persecution against Liu Shaoqi, then China's head of state, that led to his death in prison.