What was going on when I was born?

WASHINGTON IN 1830, Andrew Jackson was in the White House, South Carolina was threatening to nullify Federal laws, a revolution in France was putting Louis Philippe on the throne and America's first railroad - a 14-mile stretch of the Baltimore & Ohio that had been under construction for two years - was hauling its first passengers in horse-drawn rail cars. That also was the last time that an official United States census showed that New Jersey, with its collection of towns and rural acres, had a larger population than the area that now constitutes New York City. The last time, that is, until now. The count in 1830: New Jersey, 320,823; the five-county area that now makes up New York City, 242,278. By the next census (1840), the New York area had jumped to a population of more than 390,000, including upward of 312,000 in Manhattan, while the Garden State's count was 373,300.

LOS ANGELES I T is often characterized as enigmatic. It tells what it cares to about itself, and generally that is not much. It seems to discard more prevailing wisdom than it follows. Big as it is, it tends to keep its head low. And it is widely heralded as one of the best-managed companies in the world of business. Teledyne Inc. keeps rolling along, getting bigger, drawing more envy, attracting more mystery. It prospered mightily during the golden years for conglomerates in the 1960's, prospered when they subsequently fell from favor, and continues to prosper as they march back into the affections of investors. It is that rare conglomerate that has always worked. ''It's one of the almost unique companies in America,'' says Robert Christensen, a securities analyst at A.G. Becker. ''It's a company that's a different beast than most.'' Broadly diversified, Teledyne is an amalgam of 130 companies (it doesn't like to call them subsidiaries) that make, among other things, engine tools, drones, Water Pik dental hygiene products, shower heads, swimming pool heaters, Acoustic Research stereo speakers, dental cements, the world's largest welding positioners and manipulators (capacities to 227 tons), bakery production lines and seismic systems to monitor earthquakes. It also owns several prominent insurance companies. The horde of properties can essentially be split up into five lines of business: industrial products, aviation and electronics, specialty metals, consumer products, and insurance and finance.

If the Stouffer's Inn conference center in Harrison, N.Y., had been built on the other side of the highway, fire safety experts believe, most of the 26 victims would have survived the arsonist's fire that swept it last month. For in White Plains, just across Interstate 287, a full sprinkler system is required. In Harrison, it is not. If the MGM Grand casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., had had a full sprinkler system, which is recommended in national ''model fire codes,'' the blaze that took 84 lives in November would probably have been ''stopped in its tracks'' before the first pumper arrived, the fire chief in command said last week. Most such infernos could be prevented by effective safety codes and effective enforcement, fire chiefs and inspectors from around the nation said in recent interviews. But they agreed that safety measures were in such disarray and apathy was so great that more major fires could be expected.

61 203 324 9322 By ROBERT TOMASSON STAMFORD, Conn. - The blue chip corporations that are transforming this city from a placid commuter community into a bustling business center have embarked on a joint venture of building a residential development adjacent to the downtown business and commercial area. ''We have the corporations, we're getting the retail space and now we need residential areas,'' said Dennis Lyndon, vice president and general manager for Broadmoor Inc., a newly created company owned jointly and equally by five major corporations and a local developer. For their part, corporation officials said that their venture into housing was prompted in large measure as a means of protecting their sizable downtown real-estate investments. ''Some of those neighborhoods could go either way and we're making sure they go up,'' said a top executive of Champion International, one of the partners in the development.

PATCHOGUE PROMPTED by the specter of the town's thoroughfares developing into a series of signaled intersections separating strips of fastfood restaurants, drive-in movies and bars, the Town of Brookhaven is considering a new highway zoning category aimed at limiting commercial development along highways and bypasses. The proposed legislation, believed to be the first on the Island, is also aimed at curtailing the growing volume of merging traffic on Brookhaven's major highways - and the consequent rise in automobile accidents, traffic jams and other dangers and delays. ''We do not want another Jericho Turnpike,'' said John F. Luchsinger, chairman of the Planning Board, noting that the new category, if passed by the Town Board, would be particularly applicable to State Route 347 - Nesconset Highway. This 12-mile roadway, running through Smithtown from the Northern State Parkway, was originally intended as a high-speed bypass to Smithtown's business district and an auxiliary route to the Long Island Expressway. However, it has become a major commercial area in the western - Smithtown - end, lined on both sides by motels, pizza shops, movie theaters, shopping arcades, the sprawling Smith Haven Mall and other businesses.

Whatever happened to men? That question may have occurred to those who think that the two most compelling male presences that we have lately seen on the New York stage are those of Jack the Ripper, in Alban Berg's opera ''Lulu'' at the Met, and the Elephant Man in the play of that name. There are pleasanter people to look at when the curtain goes up, but those two are the ones that weld us to our seats. And they are, respectively, a mass murderer and a freak. After all, men were big in ancient Egypt, big in Greece and Rome, big in the Middle Ages, big in the Renaissance. You only have to look at the history of art to see that men were once the measure of all things. Their physical proportions were ideal (see Vitruvius). A man's brain could hold, unaided, all the knowledge there was. Our notions of wisdom, justice, regularity and endurance were man-based, man-oriented, man-regulated. Great architecture was predicated on a man's reach, a man's height and a man's stride. ''Man-sized'' was a compliment. ''Manliness'' was a digest of all the virtues. God had made man in his own image, and he'd done a great job.

LYNDHURST RESERVOIRS serving rationed communities in northeastern New Jersey continued their steady decline last week as state officials voiced increasing gloom over the deteriorating water-supply situation. ''What we have is a whole series of compounded problems,'' Arnold Schiffman, director of the Division of Water Resources, said at a legislative hearing here on Governor Byrne's proposed $345 million water-supply bond issue and package of bills for long-range changes in water policy and planning. ''We have the whole machinery breaking down,'' he said. ''People do not believe there's a problem until you turn on the tap and nothing comes out. At that point, it's not a problem but a catastrophe.''

Applying no smoothly Presidential coating to the unvarnished antiCommunism of his campaign, Ronald Reagan asserted last week that the Soviet Union was bent on the ''promotion of world revolution and a one-world socialist or Communist state'' and was prepared ''to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat'' to further that goal. In his first news conference as President, Mr. Reagan also assessed detente as ''a one-way street the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims'' and said his Administration would ''link'' nuclear arms talks to Soviet behavior around the world. It was much too soon to tell whether the blunt words would be matched by action. One move the Administration made last week was a minor, if symbolic indication that the Russians could no longer expect any special courtesies: The veteran Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, who is also dean of the Washington diplomatic corps, found his limousine turned away from the State Department garage and was forced to enter the building through the regular diplomatic entrance, like all other diplomats.

HARTFORD WITH charts, graphs, statistics and five assistants at his side, Mark R. Shedd, the State Commissioner of Education, discussed last week the results of the minimum proficiency tests taken in October by the state's 42,273 ninth-grade public school students. ''Generally, the schools are doing a fine job in teaching our students to read and write,'' said Dr. Shedd. But the mathematics scores, he said, were lower than in the first round of tests last spring. It was after last year's tests that Dr. Shedd announced that the state would emphasize the teaching of mathematics.

Many visitors to Britain, especially those who have made several trips there, like to see places associated with great men of the past. Some people visit as many of Sir Christopher Wren's buildings as they can; some make a pilgrimage to the spots in the Lake District frequented by the Romantic poets; some seek out the settings of the main events in Henry VIII's tempestuous life. Sir Winston Churchill has been dead for only 16 years, and it may not occur to many people to think of the great wartime leader in the same way that they see figures from the 17th or 18th centuries. But since Sir Winston died on Jan. 25, 1965, at 28 Hyde Park Gate in London, a kind of Churchill industry has sprung up in Britain, devoted to keeping his memory alive. A three-day tour makes it possible to visit a number of the places associated with the man of whom Queen Elizabeth II once said, ''He had no need for distinction greater than the name of Winston Churchill.'' I would suggest that one day be spent in London and two on easy day trips northwest and south of the city, preferably with a rental car, although it is possible to visit the principal sites by train.

The State Power Authority's nuclear power plant at Indian Point was shut down today because of a malfunction in the plant's steam turbine section. An authority spokesman said there had been no release of radioactivity at the plant, Indian Point 3. However, he said it was expected to remain out of service until at least Monday while technicians tried to determine the cause of the problem. The plant had only recently gone back into service after being closed for repairs to its turbine section. Today's shutdown meant that both active nuclear plants at the Indian Point Generating Station near Buchanan, in northern Westchester County, were out of service. Indian Point 2, owned by the Consolidated Edison Company, has been shut down since Oct. 17 because of a leak of water inside its reactor containment structure.

Governor Byrne will present a $5.6 billion state budget to the New Jersey Legislature Monday that requires no new taxes but forecasts higher fares for the state's 500,000 commuters and tuition increases of 9 percent at Rutgers University. The proposed budget, for the fiscal year beginning July 1, contains modest new programs to aid the elderly and counties with welfare burdens that are higher than average. However, Mr. Byrne has presented a problem for the lawmakers by eliminating school aid to tax-rich school districts to save $64 million. If the legislators want to replace this aid, they will have to transfer funds from some other program or find some way to increase state revenues in a year when all 120 State Senate and Assembly seats are up for election. Governor Byrne is in the final year of his second four-year term and cannot succeed himself.