What was going on when I was born?

Responding to ''long lines and heavy withdrawals'' of deposits from one of Maryland's largest savings and loan associations, Gov. Harry R. Hughes yesterday orderered a 20-day moratorium on further withdrawals from the thrift institution. The action late yesterday afternoon followed a third day in which depositors demanded their money as they expressed concern that troubles in the thrift unit's real estate subsidiary would jeopardize their funds. The crisis at Community Savings and Loan Association in Bethesda, Md., is the latest in a series of sudden difficulties among commercial banks, thrift institutions and government securities dealers over the last year stemming from complex financial dealings. In Community Savings's case, the trouble emerged last week when it was disclosed that the thrift association's real estate subsidiary did not have the cash to make interest and principal payments on a portion of $1.4 billion in mortgages it had issued.

Companies Pantry Pride bid for Revlon, which took defensive steps. Revlon said it planned a ''special dividend'' to shareholders - a so-called poison pill - that could add $750 million to the cost of buying the company. It also said it would buy up to five million of its shares in the open market. Pantry Pride offered $47.50 a share, or a total of $1.81 billion, for the cosmetics company. [Page D1.] T.W.A. shareholders other than Texas Air and Carl Icahn would decide which offer for the airline to accept under a proposal going to T.W.A.'s board today, a Wall Street source said. The proposal, worked out by T.W.A. and Texas Air advisers, is intended to leave the decision to ''impartial'' shareholders, the source said. [D1.]

A takeover battle between Revlon Inc. and Pantry Pride Inc. burst into the open yesterday as Revlon announced a series of defensive steps and Pantry Pride made a formal tender offer. Revlon said it planned a ''special dividend'' to shareholders - a so-called poison pill - that could add $750 million to the cost of buying the company. It also said it would buy back up to five million of its shares in the open market. For its part, Pantry Pride formally offered stockholders $47.50 a share for any and all of Revlon's 38.2 million shares, or a total of $1.81 billion. It said its offer was conditional on getting about $750 million in additional financing.

For many middle-aged Americans, the name Motorola evokes memories of their first television set or car radio. These days, however, Motorola is making its mark in the high-tech world of semiconductors, computers and mobile phones. But Motorola's technological expansion over the last decade has not always gone smoothly. And today, the company is plagued with problems in the very businesses that it is counting on for fast growth in the future. Low-priced cellular mobile phones from Japan have produced losses for Motorola's mobile phone division, notwithstanding its 40 percent market share. Four-Phase Systems Inc., Motorola's computer unit, is also in the red and laid off 500 employees last week. And a worldwide slump has hurt Motorola's semiconductor division even though that unit is weathering the downturn far better than many of its competitors.

After decades of frustrating failure, scientists are reporting the first glimmers of success in their efforts to design new ''miracle crops'' for starving regions of Africa. In recent months farmers in Zimbabwe have achieved record harvests of maize using a high-yielding hybrid laboriously developed by agricultural researchers; a new high-yielding, drought-resistant strain of sorghum has been distributed for the first time to some farmers in the Sudan; and progress has been claimed toward developing new varieties of other staple food crops in Africa. Nobody expects a technological revolution in African agriculture overnight or believes that agricultural technology alone can solve the continent's awesome economic, political and social problems. But some optimistic scientists believe that science may ultimately be able to do for Africa what it has already helped to accomplish in much of Asia -eliminating chronic food shortages and periodic, seemingly inevitable, famines. ''The job is going to take some time,'' said Nyle C. Brady, assistant administrator for science and technology in the Agency for International Development.

Because of an editing error, an article on Monday about safety problems in the design of chemical plant processing units misattributed part of a quotation. It was J. Charles Forman, executive director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, who said, ''These are frightfully expensive changes. On the other hand, they are frightfully cheap when you consider the cost of an accident.''

GOVERNOR Kean of New Jersey became chairman in late July of the Education Commission of the States, a coalition of governors and state education officials. As a first project he named a study group to suggest what governors and legislatures could do to improve college education, pointing out that 80 percent of the nation's undergraduates attend state colleges and universities. Two weeks later the commission and the National Governors Association agreed to pay for a study of what states should be doing to improve public schools. The Governor, a former schoolteacher and college professor, will be co-chairman of that study. He also serves on a privately funded task force examining ways to build the professional status of teaching. In a recent interview Mr. Kean, a Republican, talked about what he sees as the most important national education issues and what he is trying to do about them in New Jersey. Q. Do you agree with Secretary of Education William Bennett's stands on issues such as vouchers for school students?

In the three years since the third-world debt crisis erupted, arousing fears for the global financial system, great progress has been made. Largely because of painful austerity measures south of the border, there no longer seems to be any immediate danger of debt problems toppling big banks like dominoes. Notwithstanding the progress, immense difficulties remain. For all the emergency repair work, the total amount of Latin American debt has actually risen, not fallen, over the last three years. Skeptics, therefore, say that banks have only postponed the day of reckoning - not defused the situation - by lending new money to countries so that they can pay off old debts.

''Rightly or wrongly, I believe I have paid my dues.'' - Senator Paul Laxalt. [A1:1.]

The Q&A column in Science Times on Aug. 6 contained an incorrect answer. The question and the correct answer appear today on page C4.

Some already knew the first trip they would take, or the style of house they would buy, when their $33.5 million ship - and their six numbers - came in. Sure, the odds are long - 6.1 million to 1 for a $1 ticket - but thousands of New Yorkers took a leap of faith yesterday and landed in a line for a lottery ticket. The lure was a jackpot of $28.5 million for tomorrow night's drawing of the Lotto 48 game. But so brisk were the sales that the first prize was raised yesterday afternoon to $33.5 million - the largest ever in New York and the second largest in North America, lottery officials said.

A Federal judge yesterday re-instated Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr. as a candidate for mayor in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary. The judge, John F. Keenan of District Court in Manhattan, ruled that an incorrect cover sheet on one volume of Mr. Farrell's nominating petitions was ''an inconsequential violation'' of the state election laws and that the city's Board of Elections could have employed ''less drastic remedies'' to require compliance than removing him from the ballot July 30. Minutes after the ruling, an exuberant Mr. Farrell said: ''The judge has ruled in my favor. He has agreed that you cannot take someone off for a hypertechnical error.''