What was going on when I was born?

Rank-and-file members of the United Automobile Workers today ratified a new labor contract with the Chrysler Corporation, ending a 12-day strike by the company's 70,000 production workers in this country. The union said the agreement, reached after a 42-hour bargaining session last week, was approved by 87 percent of the membership. Chrysler workers are expected to be back on the job starting with the first shift Monday. The new, three-year agreement with the smallest of the major domestic automobile companies gives each worker an immediate bonus of $2,120, in recognition of the concessions the union made in Chrysler's financial crisis of 1979-1982. It also provides for pay increases each year and parity with the General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor Company in benefits and wages. Wages will increase from $13.23 an hour now to $13.29 an hour when the new contract goes into effect.

A picture provided by Camera Press in some copies yesterday with an obituary of Maurice Cardinal Roy, former Archbishop of Quebec and Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, was incorrect. It showed Paul-Emile Cardinal Leger, former Archbishop of Montreal.

International A major art theft in Paris took place at the Marmottan Museum. Robbers, holding nine unarmed guards and 40 visitors at gunpoint, took nine of the museum's most valuable Impressionist paintings, including five Monets and two Renoirs. At least five armed gunmen took part in the holdup that lasted about five minutes. They escaped in a car. It was the first time in France that museum artworks were stolen at gunpoint, the curator who oversees the museum said. [Page A1, Column 5.] Israel attacked Palestinian bases in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon, the 13th bombing by its air force of guerrilla bases this year in Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but an Israeli military spokesman said the planes had made direct hits on their targets and had returned safely to base. [A1:1.]

A front-page caption yesterday with a picture of barge traffic in upstate New York incorrectly described the Erie Canal. It runs for about 350 miles from Albany on the Hudson River to Buffalo on Lake Erie; it is part of the 525-mile New York State Barge Canal System.

And in the seventh game, Dick Howser rested. As the Royals won the World Series for the first time last night with an 11-0 victory, their manager relaxed as much as a manager could. Through the tension of six taut games, Dick Howser was hounded by the second-guessers who analyzed his every thought. Sometimes even a thought he never had until a second-guesser brought it up. But he always smiled.

A New Jersey Supreme Court decision authorizing the withdrawal of feeding tubes from incompetent, terminally ill patients in ''right to die'' cases is being invoked for the first time, in an attempt to end the life of a 65-year-old woman in a nursing home here. In its decision last January, the court ruled that all life-prolonging medical treatment, including feeding tubes, could be withheld or withdrawn from a terminally ill nursing home patient, provided that was what the patient wanted. The decision affirmed what the court said was the constitutional right of adults to refuse medical treatment, even at the risk of death. It extended that right to include incompetent nursing home patients who were no longer capable of expressing that refusal, so long as there was ''trustworthy'' evidence that this was what they would choose if they could. The decision gave the State Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly the authority to approve requests for the removal of feeding tubes in cases that met the court's requirements. Thus, the ombudsman, Jack R. D'Ambrosia, is believed to be the first person in New Jersey - other than a juror, judge or governor in capital cases - to be given such life and death power.

The Economy The stalemate has been broken on a new tax bill, according to members of the House Ways and Means Committee. Dan Rostenkowski, its chairman, kept the committee in session all weekend and declared that he felt confident a House bill would be produced this year. The Illinois Democrat was joined in that assessment by the panel's ranking Republican, John J. Duncan of Tennessee. But Senate action is still not expected before next year. [Page A1.]

American companies gave $3.8 billion in gifts of cash, products and property to charities last year, a jump of 15 percent over the previous year, according to a national survey to be released today. But there are signs that the yearly increase in giving may be beginning to slacken. According to the Conference Board, a nonprofit, business-sponsored research organization that prepared the survey, two trends emerged from the study - companies are giving more noncash gifts, such as computer equipment, pharmaceuticals or foodstuffs, and they are focusing increasingly on gifts to organizations engaged in job training, low-income housing and economic development to depressed neighborhoods. Linda Cardillo Platzer, who directed the survey for the New York-based Conference Board, said, ''We tracked giving patterns of 315 companies which are the pacesetters in the field and found they gave $143 million in 1983 to civic or community activities, and increased this in 1984 to $241 million - a gain of 68 percent.'' She pointed out that the areas benefiting from increased giving were hard hit by Federal budget cuts.

The St. Louis Cardinals, the sprinting team that stole more bases and won more games than anybody else in baseball in 1985, took one of the historic tumbles in World Series history tonight and did it in an outbreak of anger, bitterness and violence. It was a debacle, an 11-0 blowout by the Kansas City Royals, and when it was over, Manager Whitey Herzog stood in the Cardinals' locker room and said to the President of the United States on the telephone: ''Yes, sir, President Reagan. I'm sorry we didn't put on a better show. We kind of stunk up the place tonight.''

For nearly two years, an intriguing construction project has been under way beneath the Hudson River. A new ceiling is being built in the Holland Tunnel. Though replacing a tunnel ceiling may seem a relatively simple concept, the planning, design and execution of the $78.3 million project may be every bit as significant as the construction of the tunnel itself. No other motor vehicle tunnel in the world has undergone such major renovation, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the tunnel. If the Holland Tunnel ceiling project is successful - and the Port Authority fully expects it to be - it is expected to become the model for rebuilding other aging tunnels.

Lou Piniella, for years a hot-tempered hitter, stepped into the Yankees' managerial lava pit today by becoming the 14th manager in George Steinbrenner's 13 years as owner. Piniella replaced Billy Martin, who may or may not have been informed that he had been dismissed. ''I know it's a tough job,'' Piniella said from New York in a conference call with reporters. ''But my God, it wasn't easy playing here. I've been here a long time and I've seen different changes in the manager's position. I'm no fool; I'm coming in with my eyes open. I know I could be replaced. I just plan on doing a good job.''

The Kansas City Royals, adding a previously well-hidden hitting attack to their season-long tenacity, made baseball history tonight by winning their first World Series in a game spiced by a wild scene that concluded with a St. Louis coach dragging a Cardinal pitcher away from an umpire. The Royals, who were given little chance to win their division title, the American League pennant or the World Series, trampled the Cardinals, 11-0, in the seventh game of the Series, capping their second remarkable comeback in post-season play. In both the league playoff and the Series, the Royals fell behind, three games to one, then fought back and won the last three games. ''When we got out of St. Louis alive and they didn't put us away there, I felt we had a good chance,'' Dick Howser, the Kansas City manager, said, rubbing his champagne-stung eyes. ''Our players were always confident. I'm not talking about a rah-rah kind of confidence. You could just see it in their eyes that they thought they could win.''