What was going on when I was born?

The Supreme Court, upholding the idea of community-based banking, ruled today that regional banking zones were valid under both Federal law and the Constitution. The vote was 8 to 0. The Court upheld the so-called New England Compact, under which Massachusetts and Connecticut permit New England-based bank holding companies, but not those from New York or other states outside the region, to acquire local banks. Similar regional banking zones are spreading quickly across the country, with 15 states now participating and others actively considering the step. The zones share the common purpose of strengthing regional banking while at the same time protecting local banks from acquisition by or direct competition from big banks in New York and other money centers.

Once upon a time, 650 people lived peacefully in twin apartment buildings that faced each other across East 44th Street, just a glance away from the grass and flags of the United Nations. The Beaux Arts, as the bulky pair was called, were residential hotels and the apartment suites were small. But the rents were regulated and the people were happy. They used to fling open their casement windows to enjoy the sun and the breeze that lifted off the East River. Some of the luckier ones, from apartments high up in the 17-story buildings, could even see the river. Each spring, they held a street fair to dance, plant trees and meet new neighbors.

''The case was quite rightly conducted as a medical matter. There was no crime.''

The insurance industry has initiated sweeping changes that promise higher costs or less coverage for most American businesses and public agencies, insurance experts say. The recent sharp increases in the cost of medical malpractice insurance are but one example of the new approach insurers are following to reduce their skyrocketing costs. The changes range from making insurance payments only on claims made during a policy period to putting more limits on the total amount that insurers would pay out for multiple claims. Another shift being considered would require for the first time that many policy limits include the legal costs of defending liability claims. Until now, insurers have paid the costs separately. The changes would mean the legal costs would be subject to a deductible and would be treated the same as a damage loss.

The cable television industry feels under siege. It is facing growing competition for viewer attention from the boom in video cassette recorders, and as fewer new cable systems are built, it is having trouble wooing and holding on to new subscribers. Those problems have cable programming networks seeking another way to attract audiences, and some of them think they have found it in pay-per-view television. Two cable networks, Showtime/ The Movie Channel and The Playboy Channel, announced plans last week for pay-per-view operations, and a third company, called The Exchange, is developing a similar offering. Pay-per-view allows cable subscribers to pay a small fee to see a specific movie or other special programming. Subscribers can get pay-per-view instead of, or in addition to, the continuous programming they now receive for a monthly fee from so-called pay-cable networks such as Showtime or Time Inc.'s Home Box Office.

The International Monetary Fund and about a dozen countries prepared today to make more than $1.6 billion of credits available to Argentina, based on fresh austerity pledges expected from it. The I.M.F. would provide $1.2 billion under a new agreement with the 18-month-old democratic Government of President Raul Alfonsin. The accord would replace one that was reached last year but was suspended by the fund on April 1 when Argentina fell out of compliance. Analysts were guarded in their assessment of whether the accord would achieve one of its principal aims: a sharp reduction in Argentine inflation. To achieve that, they said, President Alfonsin will have to win cooperation from the powerful Argentine trade union movement, which could be difficult.

MEDICAL researchers have found an experimental model they have long sought, a laboratory animal that naturally develops a disease resembling rheumatoid arthritis. The animal, an inbred strain of mice that develops the condition in its hind legs, is now being used in the search for the cause, cure or improved treatment of a illness that cripples millions of people. After an extensive series of mouse studies, researchers at the University of Alabama Medical School at Birmingham and the World Health Organization collaborating center in Mainz, West Germany, are reporting results that challenge past scientific dogma about what it is that causes the body to destroy the shock-absorbing cartilage in its joints - the anatomical areas where two or more bones meet - and that can bring on permanent pain, swelling and severe lameness. There is some debate over the new findings, and it may take years before they are fully verified. But the Alabama, West German and other researchers believe the new animal model has already begun to provide valuable insights into the nature of arthritis.

Hyman G. Rickover, the retired Navy admiral who was censured last month for accepting gifts from the General Dynamics Corporation, said in a letter released today that he had given away most of the gifts. He again denied that they had affected his duties as head of the Navy's nuclear submarine program. ''They were given to members of Congress and Congressional staff,'' he wrote in a letter dated last Friday to Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr. Some were also given to submarine crews, members of his office staff and Presidents of the United States, he added.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the Securities and Exchange Commission had no authority to block the publication of stock market newsletters on the basis of past misconduct by a newsletter's publisher. The 8-to-0 decision was a significant setback for a recent and much-disputed S.E.C. enforcement effort. The commission has moved aggressively in the last few years to regulate specialized publications that offer stock market advice in the face of criticism that the effort violated the publisher's constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of the press. The Court, however, ruled today that there was no need to resolve the dispute in constitutional terms. Instead, the Court ruled that Congress never gave the S.E.C. the regulatory authority on which it had been relying. Since the commission has no jurisdiction over investment publications, the Court said in an opinion by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, there was no need to decide the abstract question of whether such jurisdiction would be valid under the First Amendment.

President Reagan, saying he was prepared to ''go the extra mile'' to obtain mutual restraints in nuclear weapons, formally announced today that the United States would continue to honor provisions of the second strategic arms limitation treaty of 1979. After a debate within the Administration that had divided his top aides, Mr. Reagan told Congress that he would not seek to renounce the treaty outright and would not attempt to undercut it in other ways. 'Serious Reservations' ''Despite my serious reservations about the inequities of the SALT I agreement and the serious flaws of the SALT II agreement,'' Mr. Reagan said of the two arms accords signed in the 1970's, ''I took this action in order to foster an atmosphere of mutual restraint conducive to serious negotiation'' in the present Geneva talks. One provision of the 1979 treaty sets a limit of 1,200 on the number of missiles with multiple warheads. Mr. Reagan's decision to continue honoring the treaty will have a direct effect this fall when the latest Trident submarine Alaska will start sea trials carrying 24 missiles, raising the number of American multiple-warhead missiles to 14 above the limit.

THE historic goal of preschool and remedial programs for students from low-income families has been to close the achievement gap separating them from children of higher-income families. Efforts to gauge the progress of the schools toward this objective have usually centered on comparisons between deprived children who were in Head Start and other supplementary programs and their peers who did not receive such benefits. In fact, highly publicized studies in Michigan and New York have recently documented the impact of Head Start, the Federal program to enhance the social and intellectual development of 3- and 4-year-olds, in helping participants ultimately achieve more than they would have without the boost. What is seldom addressed, however, is the question of how children with the benefit of Head Start and other intervention do in comparison, not with students of similar background, but with the school population at large. One of the first major efforts to address this issue has been made in Montgomery County, Maryland, in suburban Washington, and officials there believe that the results are not encouraging.

A bill that would allow some murderers to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole was passed by the Assembly tonight after five hours of impassioned debate. The vote, 99 to 47, was a turning point in the decade-long battle here between those who favor capital punishment and those who favor the life-without-parole concept for punishing some murderers. It was the first time either house of the Legislature passed a life-without-parole bill. The measure now goes to the Senate, whose Republican majority has opposed life without parole, preferring instead the reinstatement of the death penalty. But tonight's vote, in which 11 Republicans joined with Democrats in support of the bill, and Governor Cuomo's strong public statements in favor of it were expected to put pressure on the Senate at least to bring the issue to a vote.