What was going on when I was born?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17--The Environmental Protection Agency has found evidence that the major source of Atlantic City's water is threatened by pollution from toxic wastes at a nearby dumping site, a Congressman disclosed today.

HAVANA, Dec. 17--Fidel Castro, the Cuban President, said today that he was ready to accept "the olive branch" from the United States, but expressed deep concern that Ronald Reagan's foreign policy as President would be a threat to Latin America and world peace.

For more than a year, Dr. Elliot M. Gross has not known from one day to the next whether the courts would allow him to stay on as New York City's Chief Medical Examiner, the job Mayor Koch appointed him to on Aug. 9, 1979. Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled, in effect, that he could keep his post.

DETROIT, Dec. 17--The embattled Chrysler Corporation, seeking more Government aid to survive, said today that it expects to lose more than $200 million in the final quarter of this year, bringing its 1980 deficit to about $1.7 billion, the largest one-year loss ever for an American corporation.

In the wake of this week's decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to allow oil prices to increase by roughly 10 percent, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani, warned yesterday that prices could rise still further, to $50 a barrel by next spring.

NOTHING is immune from inflation these days, not even having a child. The costs of prenatal care and normal delivery have risen dramatically; in Manhattan they now range from $2,250 to $5,000. A Caesarean delivery, which requires a much longer hospital stay for the mother, can double the bill.

THIS is Bauhaus and that's Art Moderne, right? And over there are some Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau pieces. Or are they Art Deco? Or Wiener Werkstatte? Perhaps they're traditionalist, with just a touch of the modernist spirit. When it comes to defining these furniture styles, not even the experts can agree. Controversy seems inevitable when late 19th-and early 20th-century furniture is being discussed.

Roger E. Birk, the 50-year-old president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch Company, will also become its chairman and chief executive officer, following the departure of Donald T. Regan, the company announced yesterday.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17--Operating costs of Conrail are so great that the company will most likely require Federal financial assistance indefinitely, and may cost the Government up to $2.1 billion in the next five years, a Federal agency reported today.

MIAMI--Juan Cerillo remembers that as he walked off the trawler in Key West, Fla., in May with the boatloads of other refugees from Cuba, his mind was full of thoughts of the opportunity offered by his new country. Seven months later, all the opportunity he has is to eat take-out meals on the street, tar roofs at $3.50 an hour and sleep in a car parked near the Miami River.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17--Alexander M. Haig Jr., the secretary of state-designate, will come to Washington not only when an unusual number of foreign policy problems demand immediate attention but also at a time of impending personnel crisis that many State Department officials say could endanger the integrity of the career Foreign Service.