What was going on when I was born?

-claims courts to the highest court in the land, the ranks of women on the bench have grown significantly in recent years. According to a Census Bureau report issued this month, women nearly tripled their share of the nation's judgeships between 1970 and 1980, the last year for which statistics are available. The proportion of female judges rose from 6 to 17 percent, the report said. Moreover, the gains by women are not only numerical. There is evidence that the influx of female judges is having an impact on how courts treat women, view issues and reach decisions.

His world is filled with alarm caused by the unexpected. A sudden move, an unfamiliar face, the squeal of a car's brakes; all can make the fear rise in his blood and turn a peaceful night into one of menacing shadows and sounds. He is a Libyan dissident student living in Manchester. For the last two months the dissident, who uses the pseudonym Saber, and hundreds of other Libyan students and exiles in Britain have lived in fear of the death squads they are convinced were sent here by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's Government to track them down and kill them. Since 1980 several opponents of the Qaddafi Government have been killed and dozens of others wounded by attacks mounted in Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe.

Long before planners and public officials began mapping their vision of a new Times Square, William Hollingsworth Whyte, camera in hand, was quietly figuring out what makes the urban environment tick - detail by detail. The proper proportions of a step, for example, became a matter of keen importance to him, leading to miles of film of people climbing into buildings and out of subway stations. At the Citicorp Center several years ago, his camera captured occasional skippers and prancers. At the average subway station, it recorded armies of groaners and winded souls. The main difference? The steps at Citicorp are 6 inches high and 12 inches wide - ideal, Mr. Whyte says. The steps in most subway stations are of slightly different proportions - 7 inches by 11 1/2 inches - and that can make all the difference when there are 27 steps in a staircase.

The Dellinger family of Stewartstown, Pa., used to shop for Christmas presents by driving 20 miles over rolling countryside, past orchards, corn and soybean fields, to the nearest department store. Last fall, however, they made some of their holiday purchases a bit early and bought a sewing machine and a stereo without leaving home, and without using a mail-order catalogue. They did their shopping by computer. ''It was exciting and it was fun,'' said Deborah Dellinger, who compared it to shopping by catalogue. ''You can sit down with a paper and pencil and get the same results, but it's more fun using the computer.''

The Board of Education's system of paying school employees for extra assignments and overtime work has been marked by overpayments and widespread abuse, according to an audit released yesterday by City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin. The audit cited instances of school employees' receiving money for work they may not have done, of payments for ''work'' - the quotation marks are the audit's - done at home, of double billing and of thousands of employees working longer hours than allowed by the board's own regulations. The audit was begun long before the issue of what is known as per session pay came to public attention in the case of Anthony J. Alvarado, now under suspension as Schools Chancellor. His case touches on the issue of the per session payments he authorized as a district superintendent, but the subject is not cited in the misconduct charges filed against him by the board.

Because of an editing error, a Washington dispatch yesterday incorrectly described an action by the International Court of Justice on Nicaragua's lawsuit requesting an immediate halt to the United States' sponsorship of military attacks against its territory.

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1984 Companies I.B.M. is to be charged with abusing its dominant role in the European market, according to a Common Market official. The filing in June, which would end a complex antitrust investigation, may alter I.B.M.'s business practices. Sanctions are unclear. American analysts said the Europeans' early disclosure of the filing may be aimed at winning concessions from the computer giant. (Page D1.) A contribution to holders of Baldwin-United annuities is being considered by the insurance and stock brokerage industries. The contribution, which could be as much as $250 million, would increase the reimbursement to the holders of the annuities, which are threatened by the reorganization of Baldwin-United. It would also ease the negative impact on the reputations of firms that sold the annuities as safe investments. (D1.)

David Anthony Kennedy, 28 years old, who had led a deeply troubled life since the assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead this morning in his room at a hotel here. He had suffered heroin and alcohol addiction, but the cause of his death was not immediately determined. There were ''no signs of foul play,'' said Sgt. Henry L. Marchman, spokesman for the Police Department of Palm Beach. The results of a preliminary autopsy tonight were being studied.

Nicaragua called on the World Court today to issue a restraining order to stop the United States from supporting military activities against the Sandinista Government. Nicaragua's attorneys, making their appeal before the 15-member Court in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace here, asked the Court for ''interim measures of protection.'' Essentially this protection would be a ban on all United States military activities relating to Nicaragua while the Court examines the Nicaraguan application to declare that United States support for guerrilla groups fighting the Managua Government is illegal. Lawyers for the United States were not heard during the first day of proceedings. After the first presentations today, Davis R. Robinson, legal adviser to the State Department, described the Nicaraguan arguments before the Court as ''basically political.''

The stock brokerage and life insurance industries, seeking to protect their reputations after the failure of the Baldwin-United Corporation, are considering a contribution of about $250 million to holders of Baldwin annuities, officials from the two industries said yesterday. Executives from about two dozen national and regional brokerage firms that sold the annuities have been meeting frequently in New York for nearly three months to consider a contribution of approximately $200 million, according to attorneys from two of the firms, who asked not to be named. In addition, the executive committee of the American Council of Life Insurance is scheduled to meet in Washington today to begin considering a contribution of ''upwards of $50 million'' from the life insurance industry, which also sold the policies, according to one executive committee member, who also asked not to be identified. Two of the largest brokerage firms - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. - had announced in late January that they would set aside $88 million and $25 million, respectively, for customers to whom they had sold Baldwin annuities. In addition, E. F. Hutton & Company had set up a $20 million Baldwin reserve without details on how it would be distributed.

An article in some copies of The Living Section yesterday about the Cinderella Ball of the American Ballet Theater incompletely identified the honorary chairmen of the event. They are the Count and Countess Frederic Chandon de Briailles.

VISITORS to this year's Kips Bay Boys' Club Show House will be surprised at the relatively small scale of the neo-Federal house in which 16 design firms were invited to display their talents. Although the brick- facade house recalls a comfortable and prosperous time, it is not a grand or imposing mansion. Situated at 36 East 74th Street, the graciously proportioned house with tall bay windows was originally part of a series of 11 row houses designed in 1871 by David and John Jardine, and overlooks one of the Upper East Side's most pleasant side streets. In 1920 the architectural firm of Cross & Cross renovated two of the row houses as a private residence for George and Martha Whitney. Inside the five-story house the rooms unwind around an elegant swirl of a stair. The designers seem to have responded to the small-scaled spaces by creating personal rooms, in which one might expect to find them surrounded by their favorite things, if only they could escape from their demanding clients.