What was going on when I was born?

The Chevron Corporation said yesterday that it had agreed to sell its 60.2 percent stake in Gulf Canada Ltd. to Olympia & York Developments Ltd., the largest office developer in North America and a major landlord in New York City, for about $2.18 billion. Canadian officials said they believed it to be the largest acquisition in Canadian history. Chevron said the sale would help reduce the debt it incurred last year from its $13.3 billion acquisition of the Gulf Corporation. Olympia & York said it did not intend to make a similar offer for the remaining 40 percent of Gulf Canada's shares, a large part of which are already owned by Canadians.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives today approved a Government budget outline that would reduce the projected deficit in the fiscal year 1986 by $56 billion. The vote was 258 to 170, with 24 Republicans joining 234 Democrats in support of a budget that projects spending at $967 billion in the year that starts Oct. 1, revenue at $794 billion and the deficit at $173 billion. Over three years, the plan would cut projected deficits by a total of $259 billion. Fifteen Democrats voted no. In both cases, the Republicans and Democrats who crossed over were a mixture of conservatives, moderates and liberals.

A picture on the first page of Business Day yesterday, with an article about Lloyd's of London, was published erroneously. It showed Princess Michael of Kent, not the Duchess of Kent.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that it expected more arrests in what some officials described as one of gravest security breaches in the history of the Navy. Spokesmen for the bureau said they expected to arrest additional associates of a retired Navy communications specialist and his son, who have been charged with smuggling secret documents to the Soviet Union. ''I would expect more charges against more people, associates of the father,'' said Bill Baker, the assistant F.B.I. Director for Congressional and public affairs. ''We think this ring is bigger than the two now charged.'' Inquiry Centers on Father The investigation centers on John A. Walker, 47 years old, a former warrant officer who had access to detailed information about the movement of the American and Soviet fleets in his 20-year naval career.

In the tax revision plan President Reagan submits to Congress next week, he will propose that the personal exemptions that taxpayers can take for themselves and their dependents be nearly doubled next year, Administration officials said today. The exemption was one of the last matters to be decided. Last Friday a senior Administration official said the President would propose that the exemption, now $1,040, rise to $1,500 for the 1986 tax year and then gradually to $2,000 over a period of years. That decision was reversed this week in favor of a rise to $2,000 next year, the officials said.

More than 100 volunteers fanned out through the Upper East Side Wednesday evening to count the homeless who live in the area. Peering into construction sites, poking around under the Queensboro Bridge and walking down every flight of steps they could find, the volunteers came up with a very rough count of 200 people. The census, which was conducted by the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association and the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, included every block from 59th Street to 96th Street between Fifth Avenue and the East River.

The Going Out Guide on Tuesday gave an incorrect location for the Acting Company. It is at 420 West 42d Street.

FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1985 The Economy The House approved a 1986 Government budget that would reduce the projected deficit by $56 billion. Over three years, the plan would cut projected deficits by $259 billion. The House and the Senate each have now approved 1986 budgets that are almost the same size. But they are poles apart on the politically sensitive issues of the military budget and Social Security, setting the stage for what could be a tough conference to work out differences. [Page A1.]

The Treasury has been paying less lately for the money it borrows. So have municipalities and corporations. But many consumers using credit cards or taking out personal loans have been forced to pay interest rates as high as, or even higher than, six months or a year ago. ''Consumers are getting slaughtered with these interest rates,'' said Neil J. Fogarty, president of the Consumer League of New Jersey, which is lobbying for the state to lower its 30 percent usury rate ceiling. But if the high consumer rates arouse ire, they do not appear to have crimped consumer borrowing, which remains at record levels. During the first quarter, consumer credit zoomed to $477 billion, up $24.6 billion, from $452.4 billion at the end of 1984 -an annual rate of growth of almost 22 percent. In contrast, business borrowing rose at a 12 percent rate.

Under this heading, The Times amplifies articles or rectifies what the editors consider significant lapses of fairness, balance or perspective. An article in Business Day on Monday about oil-industry taxes reported that many regard Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Democrat of Texas, as the father of the so-called windfall profits tax enacted in 1980.

Home prices in New York City and its suburbs are rising faster than anywhere else in the nation, to the point where they now exceed those in many parts of the nation's customary pacesetter, California. According to a study released this week by the National Association of Realtors here, the typical existing single-family home in New York and the neighboring suburbs - co-ops and condominiums as well as detached houses - resold for a median price of $125,400 during the first three months this year, 25 percent more than a year earlier and 78 percent more than three years ago. Nationwide, the association reports, prices rose an average of only 3.4 percent over the last year, to a median price of $73,900. Three years ago, the typical New York area home sold for only $70,500, just slightly above the national average then of $67,800. Only in Orange County, Calif., the vast suburban plain south of Los Angeles, was the median price higher than in New York, at $132,100, and that price has not budged for three years.

A picture caption in Metropolitan Report yesterday, with an article about New York State license plates, incorrectly described a design for new plates. It is one of six being considered.