What was going on when I was born?

Nearly 12 million people were out of work in November as the nation's unemployment rate shot up four-tenths of a percentage point to 10.8 percent, setting another postwar record, the Labor Department reported today. The rise in the rate from the 10.4 percent level in October was far sharper than many economists had expected. It was caused, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, by the loss of 165,000 additional payroll jobs as well as by an increase of 375,000 in the number of new workers entering the labor force. In many months, even when the unemployment rate rises, the nation's industries add jobs to the work force, but there was no increase last month, the statistics bureau noted. More than 99,032,000 people were working in the week of Nov. 15 when bureau officials made their monthly household survey, virtually the same as in October.

At 12:01 this morning, New York State's minimum drinking age was raised from 18 - where it has been since Prohibition was repealed in 1933 - to 19, a change that poses a particular problem for college administrators. The new law, which makes it illegal to sell, give or deliver alcohol to people under 19, will affect about a quarter of the college population, and many schools have already adopted new rules and policies to keep the under-age students away from alcohol. Some schools are distributing new identification cards punched with holes to indicate whether a student is 19. A few are barring those under 19 from events where alcohol is served, or barring alcohol from certain events. And many have instituted rules that govern even private on-campus parties.

New York's major cultural institutions have started to apply new strategies to deal with growing financial strains in a worsening economy. All are struggling with rising costs at the same time that they face government cutbacks of funds and the recession's toll on individual, foundation and corporate donations. For example: - The Paul Taylor Dance Company has hired a full-time professional fund-raiser for the first time in its 28-year history. - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is raising its admission price and charging fees for symposiums and lectures it used to present free. - The Metropolitan Opera is experimenting with fund-raising radio marathons to reach potential new donors.

President Reagan encountered sharp public criticism of his Administration's policies today from Colombia's President and jeers from crowds on the street after flying to that country from Brazil for a five-hour visit. Later, after flying here from Bogota, Mr. Reagan met this evening with President Alvaro Magana of El Salvador and declared he was prepared to certify that El Salvador had made sufficient progress on human rights to warrant renewal of its military aid. Mr. Reagan's statement about El Salvador was a surprise, because Administration officials had said he would not determine the country's human rights status until after he returned home from his Latin American trip. Congress has required the Administration to certify progress on human rights if military aid is to be renewed in January. Comment by Reagan At the meeting with Mr. Magana, Mr. Reagan was asked if he would certify such progress. ''On the basis of everything we know now, yes, of course,'' he replied.

Dr. Barney B. Clark's new artificial heart has beaten about 200,000 times since it was implanted and his doctors said today that it had dramatically improved his condition. One favorable sign indicating that Dr. Clark was on the way to recovery was that his doctors disconnected him from an artificial respirator that took over his breathing after surgery. Dr. Clark, like many other patients who have a breathing tube in their windpipe, had indicated to his nurses and visitors that it was uncomfortable and that he wanted it removed as soon as possible. The doctors removed it today because tests called blood gases were ''right on the mark,'' said Dr. Chase N. Peterson, vice president for health affairs at the University of Utah. Wife Is Visiting Him The tube in his windpipe connected him to the respirator, and once it was removed, he was free to talk with his wife, Unaloy, who was visiting him. He said he wanted some water, was given some and said, ''That's good.''

The nation's long economic slump is reversing many of the economic gains the South realized over the last two decades from the movement of industry and jobs to the Sun Belt. Half the Deep South states are beset with unemployment rates of 10 percent or more, most of them for the first time since they began keeping unemployment records after World War II. State and local governments are imposing spending cuts that are forcing the elimination or reduction of programs ranging from capital improvements to education. The number of small-business operators and entrepreneurs, swollen in recent years by the influx of people and industry in the region, has dwindled as they have shut their doors or become insolvent.

United States covert activities in Central America, which began a year ago with limited aims, have become the most ambitious paramilitary and political action operation mounted by the Central Intelligence Agency in nearly a decade, according to intelligence officials. With more than 150 agents based in Honduras and dozens more in neighboring countries, intelligence sources said, the C.I.A. has devoted a large part of its special operations staff to the Central American effort. Before it began, the C.I.A. had fewer than a dozen paramilitary and political action specialists in the region, the sources said. In Honduras the C.I.A. has indirectly provided money, training and military equipment to paramilitary groups whose avowed aim is the overthrow of the leftist Sandinist Government in neighboring Nicaragua, according to American and Honduran officials familiar with the operations. Policy Called Unchanged That aim differs from the Reagan Administration's declared policy of favoring negotiations with Nicaragua over regional problems. Administration officials said the American policy toward Nicaragua had not changed. Intelligence officials insisted that the covert operations remained limited in scope and did not involve any effort to overthrow the Sandinist Government.

A roofer, a clothing fitter, a supervisor of messengers and the owner of a maintenance company were among the holders announced today of the four winning tickets in the largest lottery prize in the nation, and they came to the State Capitol to collect their shares of $11,141,892. Each winning ticket was worth $2,785,473 over a 20-year period, before taxes, and the winners and their families said they were ''stunned'' and ''shocked'' and ''numb.'' One winner planned to retire; the rest, for now, said they would stay on their jobs. They all appeared a bit bewildered, but then it has been a bewildering week in New Jersey. The fever and fantasies that surrounded the record prize had made mornings at the bus stops and afternoons at the lunch counters times of lively conversation.

Prince Andrew has switched on the Christmas decorations in Regent Street. Harrods is dressed, as ever, in its seasonal costume of shimmering white lights. In a few days, the Norwegian Government's annual gift of thanks to the British people for their support during World War II, a towering fir tree, will be illuminated in Trafalgar Square. Ordinarily, at this time of the year, English children beg their parents to take them to the pantomimes, the traditional holiday shows that combine, despite their name, elements of farce, music and mime. But Christmas 1982 promises to be different. This year the kids are begging to be taken to see the movie ''E.T.''

Delegates from 158 member nations of Unesco wound up a two-week special conference here tonight by adopting a plan for the organization's future activities that included a divisive chapter on information and mass communications and another on collective rights as distinct from human rights. Agreement on the final resolutions for 13 programs - including activities in science, education, culture and development - was by consensus, without a vote. In their closing statements, delegations from the industrial nations and the third world, after clashing frequently during the debate, all voiced reservations about some aspects of the plan, as did the Soviet delegation, which by and large had sided with the third world. The texts adopted today will serve as the basis for efforts by Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow of Senegal, Unesco's Director General, to work out a precise program for 1984 and 1985. The program will have to be approved by Unesco's General Assembly next summer, and some of the arguments will undoubtedly be resumed then.

The leaders of the Common Market nations began two days of meetings here today to try to unify their positions on East-West matters and on protectionism before important discussions next week with American officials. The regularly scheduled conference, one of the two held yearly by the European Economic Community's chiefs of state and government, centered on exchanges between the leaders on possible differences in Soviet policy after the death of Leonid I. Brezhnev and on European attitudes toward shoring up the community's agricultural markets and weakened industries. Both areas will be the main points of discussion in the series of United States-European meetings next week that will end in Brussels next Friday with a session of NATO's Atlantic Council.

The Soviet Union has flight-tested a new land-based intercontinental ballistic missile, a United States Government source disclosed tonight. The unratified strategic arms limitation treaty, which both sides have said they will observe, allows each party to produce one new model. The source, who insisted that he be identified neither by name nor agency, said not enough was known about the new missile to describe it closely.