What was going on when I was born?

Jordan announced today that it was restoring diplomatic relations with Egypt. An Egyptian official said late tonight that King Hussein of Jordan had telephoned President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt this evening to congratulate him on the eve of the Islamic New Year Wednesday and to inform him that the Jordanian Cabinet had decided to resume diplomatic relations. Jordan, one of 17 Arab nations that severed diplomatic relations with Cairo after President Anwar el-Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is the first to announce that it would resume diplomatic ties with Cairo. Egypt Sees 'Positive Step' Among Arab countries, only Oman, the Sudan and Somalia maintained diplomatic relations after the Camp David accords of 1978 between Israel and Egypt.

Argentina and the International Monetary Fund have come to terms on a program of austerity for that country that could make available billions of dollars in fresh credits from both the I.M.F. and commercial banks. A spokesman for Jacques de Larosi ere, managing director of the I.M.F., said today that he had decided to recommend that the fund's board of governors approve the accord, which was painstakingly drafted by the I.M.F. staff and officials in Buenos Aires. The recommendation by the head of the 148-nation agency is almost certain to lead to board approval, thus bringing to a successful conclusion negotiations that have been under way for nearly a year and removing a major uncertainty from the international financial scene. Disclosure by Grinspun The announcement was made initially by Argentina's Economy Minister, Bernardo Grinspun, in a speech to the 39th annual joint meeting here of the World Bank and the fund. Mr. Grinspun's statements were confirmed by Mr. de Larosi ere's office.

Under this heading, The Times amplifies articles or rectifies what the editors consider significant lapses of fairness, balance or perspective. An item in the Washington Watch column in Business Day Monday reported an accusation that the Commerce Department had exaggerated the economy's third-quarter strength by improperly including an upward adjustment to take account of the closing of General Motors plants for retooling.

Putting a glass of orange juice on America's breakfast tables has become a multibillion-dollar business, dominated by a handful of giant processors such as Minute Maid and Tropicana. So large and voracious are their appetites for oranges that the processors consider it vital to assure themselves of a steady flow of fruit at relatively steady prices. In that respect, the deadly canker disease in oranges could not have come at a worse time for the state of Florida, this country's traditional producer of oranges for juice. In recent years, Florida has been unable to guarantee the big processors their supply, in part because of erratic weather. Increasingly processors have looked abroad, most notably to Brazil, and the canker scare can only accelerate this trend, industry experts say. When and how much the canker outbreak will affect prices at the supermarket is not yet known. So far, some big juice processors say they have yet to feel a supply curtailment. ''Not at all - at least not yet,'' said Timothy J. Clarke, a spokesman for Tropicana.

In the crossword puzzle yesterday, the omission of a black square before 29 Across affected the answers for 10 Down and 28 and 29 Across, Also, a wrong definition was given for 44 Across. It should have been ''closet accessory.'' The correct puzzle answer appears today on page C19.

Chemists at Yale University have produced a synthetic cockroach aphrodisiac, and a company is negotiating with the university to test and market it. The result could be a new way of killing Periplaneta americana, the American cockroach, which now infests seven continents and is particularly well known in the New York metropolitan area. The synthetic substance, called periplanone-B, would lure the insects into traps treated with insecticide. ''It was a flash of eureka,'' Dr. Stuart L. Schreiber, associate professor of organic chemistry at Yale, said of the moment on Christmas Eve last year when he and Conrad Santini, a research associate, succeeded in the synthesis after two and a half years of fruitless labor.

New York City officials yesterday released two studies saying that dioxin emissions from eight proposed garbage-to-energy plants in the city would be small. The reports said the plants should be built quickly because the city was running out of room for its trash. ''The potential emissions of this pollutant do not constitute a serious health concern or a concern that could justify a decision not to move forward,'' Mayor Koch said at a news conference at City Hall. The Mayor and other officials warned that the city's two remaining landfills would be filled within 15 years.

''Freedom of creative work cannot be a privilege for a few.

John F. Akers, a charismatic executive who rose rapidly through the sales ranks of the world's largest computer company, yesterday was named the next chief executive of the International Business Machines Corporation. Mr. Akers, who is 49 years old and has been I.B.M.'s president since February 1983, will take the helm on Feb. 1 from John R. Opel, 59, who will remain chairman. The move had been generally expected, as Mr. Opel will be 60 on Jan. 5, and the practice at I.B.M. has been for its top leaders to step aside at that age. However, analysts said Mr. Akers's elevation was significant because he was relatively young and thus stood to serve as I.B.M.'s leader for a decade, longer than each of his three predecessors.

Despite the six-day strike at some General Motors Corporation plants, new-car sales in mid-September rose 18 percent on a daily selling rate basis over the same selling period last year, the nation's six major manufacturers reported today. The six companies - G.M., Ford, Chrysler, American Motors, Volkswagen of America and American Honda - reported sales of 218,847 units. That was an average of 24,316 cars a day in the Sept. 11-20 period, up from 164,792, or 20,599 a day, in the comparable 1983 period. There were nine selling days in the period this year, and eight in 1983.

A State Department team sent to Beirut to investigate the bombing last week of the United States Embassy identified some lapses in security but concluded in general that adequate steps were under way to defend the building before the bombing, department officials said today. Several members of the team, which was sent to Beirut by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to examine the adequacy of embassy security, returned to the United States on Monday. They briefed Mr. Shultz in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly session. The team determined that all traffic should have been barred from the street leading to the embassy and that the construction of steel gates at both ends of the road should have been completed more quickly, department officials said.

The International Business Machines Corporation said yesterday that it was negotiating to acquire a leading manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, the Rolm Corporation, in a move that seemed to heighten the competition between the world's largest computer company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Neither I.B.M. nor Rolm would discuss the negotiations yesterday. But analysts said they thought the computer giant would be willing to pay $1 billion to $1.5 billion for Rolm. It now holds a 23 percent stake in the Santa Clara, Calif., company.