What was going on when I was born?

The Chase Manhattan Corporation has ordered its staff to cut expenses by 6 percent from the amount budgeted at the beginning of the year, according to an internal Chase publication. Thomas G. Labrecque, Chase's president, was responsible for the austerity move, which is expected to bring the bank's staff to 37,800 by the end of the year, from the 39,800 that was budgeted for at the beginning of the year. Other banks have also been adopting austerity programs. Citibank, for example, has put into effect what it calls Operation Delta, in which 2,500 officers have been asked to cut expenses by 40 percent by year-end. But the bank said the program was primarily an exercise to establish new priorities and that it did not expect actually to cut expenses by that amount.

A small but growing band of distinguished analysts is challenging proclamations by Government officials and leading cancer scientists that great advances have been made in ''curing'' cancer patients. The analysts suggest that the highly touted gains in ''survival rates'' among cancer patients in recent years are partly, or perhaps even largely, a statistical mirage, caused more by changes in the way cancer is detected and defined than by any real gains in the ability of doctors to cure cancer once it is detected. However, leaders of the nation's cancer research and treatment establishment dismiss the criticism as the undocumented assertions of analysts who do not fully understand the latest advances in the clinical detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. ''I think it's a bunch of nonsense,'' said Vincent T. DeVita Jr., director of the National Cancer Institute. ''We're saving thousands of lives today that weren't saved 20 years ago. To me, that's pretty damn exciting.''

MINIMUM competency tests, already endorsed by at least 40 states for high school students, are now making themselves felt at the college level as well. Under a new Florida law, sophomores at all public universities will soon be required to pass tests in basic academic skills before they become full-fledged juniors. Community college graduates will have to pass the test in order to transfer to four-year colleges. The City University of New York was a pioneer in using such tests for its own colleges in 1978, and the New Jersey State Board of Higher Education is working on a similar proposal, first suggested earlier this year by a statewide study group. Students in all public institutions would have to pass tests in English and mathematics at the end of their sophomore year and a test in writing related to their major field as a condition for graduation.

An article in the Arts and Leisure section on Sunday about art outside New York misstated the current location of the touring exhibition ''Treasures From the Shanghai Museum.'' It is in the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington, where it is to remain through Nov. 30.

A listing of cooking schools in The Living Section on Wednesday misidentified the teacher of the Gourmet Kitchen course at Abraham & Straus. He is Leonard Klein.

Inventories held by United States businesses increased eight-tenths of 1 percent in July, while sales showed their first decline since February, the Commerce Department reported today. Inventories on shelves and in back lots expanded by $4.4 billion in July, to $551.3 billion, following an increase of two-tenths of 1 percent in June. The July gain marked the 13th consecutive monthly increase in inventories, but analysts said some of the growth was probably involuntary since sales slumped eight-tenths of 1 percent, recording the first decline since a drop of six-tenths of 1 percent in February.

The Dalai Lama, religious and national leader for millions of Tibetan Buddhists around the world, arrived in New York City yesterday to begin a 44-day visit to the United States. More than 1,000 of the Dalai Lama's followers greeted him at Kennedy International Airport. The 49-year-old religious leader, ringed by security officers, walked through the welcoming throng and into a limousine bound for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. His travels will take him to cultural, educational, religious and political centers. After a news conference today, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to stop in Washington for, among other things, a talk at the Smithsonian Institution. He will visit Middlebury College in Vermont, and Amherst, Mass., and return to New York City Oct. 7 to take part in an interreligious service for world peace at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He will then go to Dallas, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, Calif.

''The poor people and the poor nations, poor in different ways - not only lacking in food, but also deprived of freedom and other human rights - will judge those people who take these goods away from them, amassing to themselves the imperialistic monopoly of economic and political supremacy at the expense of others.'' - Pope John Paul II. (A9:5.)

It was a sight to chill the hearts of the less-celebrated: Bess Myerson, among New York City's most recognizable citizens, going through the metal detector at City Hall one recent afternoon to prove she intended no harm to the Mayor. If Miss Myerson, the City Cultural Affairs Commissioner, submitted to the rigors of high-technology security, who would be exempt? Answer: practically nobody. Last May, City Hall - once so friendly a building it seemed to beckon the public, so relaxed it was more like a home than a place of work - finally bowed to the security demands of the 80's. The intelligence division of the Police Department recommended installing a $95,000 security system, and it was done. The place, many people think, has not been the same since.

The ocean floor has yielded a historic trove to treasure hunters: the gold ring of James Drew, captain of a British sloop of war that sank in 1798. The treasure hunters say the artifact is proof that their site, in 100 feet of water two miles off the Delaware coast, is the ocean grave of the long-sought sloop of war De Braak, a lone-wolf hunter that preyed on ships of Napoleon's allies. Their finds, the result of three years of research and several months of scientific exploration in Delaware's wreck-strewn waters, were displayed today at a heavily guarded news conference here. ''This,'' said Robert Reedy Jr., a marine historian who is monitoring the search for the state, ''is the most significant underwater archeological find in this part of the world.''

A brief article yesterday about a new art gallery at 22 East 76th Street misidentified it. It is the Victor Galleries.

France and Libya have agreed to a ''total and simultaneous'' withdrawal of troops from Chad, the French Foreign Ministry announced today. The announcement followed a secret two-day trip to Libya by Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson. The trip was disclosed today. French officials said Mr. Cheysson met Col. Muammar el- Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, on Saturday in Tripoli, at which time the two officials completed the terms of the withdrawal.