What was going on when I was born?

The goal that has come to be known as the American dream has crossed a historic threshold: The average price of a new, single-family home broke into six figures in May, the Commerce Department said today. The average price was $101,000, up $5,100 just since April. As prices are rising, fewer Americans are buying homes. Last month, sales fell for the third month in a row. High interest rates are causing the drop, analysts agree, but they add that sales would be even lower if not for the proliferation of adjustable rate mortgages, which allow people to buy initially at less than market rates.

Argentina announced today that it had reached an agreement with international banks that gives the country a respite in its debt crisis. The accord came a day before a deadline for repaying overdue interest. The Government of President Raul Alfonsin has been moving to defuse the crisis by compromising with both the International Monetary Fund in Washington and militant unions at home over austerity measures to help repay the country's $45 billion debt, the developing world's third largest. Economics Minister Bernardo Grinspun said at a news conference today that Argentina would pay $225 million from its reserves to help pay off $350 million in interest that would become more than 90 days past due by this weekend. 45-Day Bridge Loan From Banks In return, a steering committee of 11 American, European and Japanese banks representing the country's private creditors would give Argentina a 45-day loan for $125 million to make up the difference due, Mr. Grinspun said. The banks also agreed to extend certain other loans, as did four Latin American nations that had lent $300 million.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson attempted today to rally support at the State Department and on Capitol Hill for intensified negotiations on Central America and Cuba. But Administration officials privately criticized his trip and suggested it might disrupt United States foreign policy. Mr. Jackson, speaking after he briefed about 50 members of Congress, asserted that his trip had produced tangible results, possibly paving the way for the eventual improvement of relations with the Governments in Cuba and Nicaragua. U.S.-Cuban Talks to Begin To bolster that view, Mr. Jackson announced that, according to Cuban officials, talks with the United States would begin in July on the migration of Cubans. He added that several members of the Congressional Black Caucus had expressed a willingness to retrace his six-day trip, including a meeting with Fidel Castro.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson's disavowal of the anti- Jewish statements made by Louis Farrakhan was regarded by Democratic leaders today as a major step toward redeeming his political standing in the party. But many privately expressed concern that serious damage might already have been inflicted on their efforts to halt an erosion of Jewish support. Spokesmen for a number of Jewish organizations joined Democratic leaders, including Walter F. Mondale, the party's expected Presidential nominee, in praising Mr. Jackson for his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan's latest statements. Some Democrats said that the move had put Mr. Jackson on political probation and that his conduct in the coming weeks, especially at the Democratic National Convention next month, would determine whether he could rehabilitate himself within the party.

The conservative majority in El Salvador's Legislative Assembly has voted to end the most important remaining part of the country's land redistribution program. The vote Thursday, which had been expected, halted further extensions of the period in which small peasant farmers can apply to buy plots of land of less than 17.5 acres that they used to rent from landowners. The Land to the Tiller program was begun in late 1980 by military officers and represented the third phase of El Salvador's land redistribution effort, which is often referred to here as proof that political change can be achieved in the midst of civil war. Duarte's Party Sought Extension Salvadoran peasant unions and the Christian Democratic Party of President Jose Napoleon Duarte asked the Assembly Thursday to vote to extend the program indefinitely. But the four- party conservative coalition, which holds a majority in the legislature, defeated the proposal.

The United States told the Soviet Union tonight that it was willing to discuss a proposal for banning the militarization of outer space, but in the context of curbs on all missile systems. The Administration responded within hours to a formal note delivered by the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, and made public by the official press agency, Tass, which proposed talks for September on banning the militarization of outer space. Washington sought to avoid an outright rejection of the Soviet plan, while promoting its own desire to resume the negotiations on medium- range missiles and strategic arms. The Soviet Union walked out of the medium-range missile talks last November in protest over the start of deployment of new American missiles in Europe, and has not agreed to the resumption of the strategic arms talks either. The Russians have been pressing for some time for negotiations on banning weapons that could destroy satellites in space.

A 24- year-old insurance agent, arraigned today on charges of murdering a 17-year- old girl, is a suspect in the slayings of five other young women in eastern Connecticut, the state police said. The suspect, Michael B. Ross of 158 North Main Street, Jewett City, was charged with capital felony murder in the slaying of Wendy Baribeault. Her body was found under a pile of rocks June 15, two days after she disappeared while walking to a convenience store near her home in Lisbon. At an arraignment in State Superior Court here today, Judge Francis McDonald ordered Mr. Ross held without bond in the Montville Correctional Center, until another court appearance July 16. If convicted, Mr. Ross could face the death penalty under the capital charge, which indicates the murder was committed during the course of a felony.

Text of Soviet statement, page 4. MOSCOW, June 29 - The Soviet Union offered today to begin talks with the United States this fall aimed at banning weapons in outer space. At the same time, it offered a reciprocal moratorium on the testing and deployment of space weapons, to take effect with the opening of such talks, which it said could be held in September in Vienna. The official press agency, Tass, which issued a Government statement describing the proposal, said it had been handed to the United States.

Wataru Kohama makes his living by harpooning whales. He has an earnest face and a ready laugh. When he is home here, he likes to play softball with his neighbors. His bookshelves contain anthologies that long days and the sea enable him to read - authors who include Proust and Kafka and, of course, Melville.

The Governor of Punjab and a top police official in the northern state resigned today as part of a plan to overhaul the civil administration, the Government announced. A Government spokesman said Governor Bhariab Dutt Pande, a Hindu who is chief administrator of the state, and P. S. Bhinder, a Sikh official responsible for law and order in Punjab, had resigned so that a ''new team would be inducted at the top administrative levels.'' Mr. Pande, 65 years old, a retired bureaucrat and former Governor of West Bengal, was appointed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi last October to head the administration in Punjab after she dismissed a government of her own nominees that had failed to curb a Sikh terrorist movement.

Iraq's recent intensification of air attacks against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf may force a re-examination of the size and mission of the United States Navy squadron in the Indian Ocean, military and civilian analysts say. They feel that the Iraqi attacks - the latest was Wednesday, when a Swiss- owned supertanker was hit by a missile, causing the death of eight crewmen - could result in retaliatory Iranian action against Kuwait and other vulnerable Persian Gulf targets. The analysts say they do not believe that the replacement of four United States Air Force Awacs aircraft in Saudi Arabia by more advanced electronic surveillance aircraft will be sufficient to check any such attack. Two Awacs sent on June 4 and June 7 are able to detect ships, even stationary ones, as well as aircraft. Two more of the upgraded aircraft are to follow, although the strength of the force will not exceed the four first sent to Saudi Arabia.

A sudden flurry of developments in Cuba and Central America, highlighted by the Rev. Jesse Jackson's mission to Havana, has stirred some hopes in Congress of a new opening for peace diplomacy. But there has been a skeptical reaction from the Reagan Administration. Some top Congressional Democrats, such as the House majority leader, Jim Wright of Texas, and the chief deputy whip, Bill Alexander of Arkansas, assert that recent developments involving the Cubans, the Government of Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan rebels indicate the long diplomatic stalemate in Central America may be easing. Secretary of State George P. Shultz and other officials contend that, so far, they see no significant change in the basic trends of the region and they say that the Administration will press ahead with its policies.