What was going on when I was born?

When a medical school faces a shortage of cadavers for dissection, two unsavory characters resort to murder to make up the deficiency. A physician at the school, who is obsessed by his work, is told of their activities, but refuses to acknowledge the fact. This is the story of ''The Doctor and the Devils,'' a screenplay that was never made into a movie, but which is being adapted by the SoHo Repertory Theater, 19 Mercer Street, between Canal and Grand Streets, starting tonight at 8. It is based on a true incident of 19th-century Edinburgh, and its author is Dylan Thomas. Tickets are $5. Information: 925-2588. BLACK CINEMA ON ASTOR PL. A ''Retrospective of Independent Black American Cinema,'' which surveys the evolution of films by blacks, opens tonight at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street. The series continues through March 8 and will offer 40 works from 1920 through 1980, presenting music, poetry, art and dance on film, as well as social drama, comedy and portraits of historical figures. Evening screenings are at 6, 8 and 10 o'clock, with afternoon sessions Saturdays and Sundays at 3. Tonight, works by William Greaves will be shown, beginning with ''Take One,'' a cinema-verite film. Tickets are $4 ($3 for students and the elderly). Information: 598-7150.

International British-American amity was stressed as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher met with President Reagan at the White House. Praising Mr. Reagan's economic program, Mrs. Thatcher said that ''we are both determined to sweep away the restrictions that hold back enterprise.'' Her own austerity program has been the subject of much debate in Britain. (Page A1, Column 6.) Alexander Haig has more authority than other recent Secretaries of State but not as much as he originally wanted, under a formula set by the Reagan Administration. The White House said that the State Department would be in charge of numerous interdepartmental working groups but fewer than Mr. Haig had requested. (A1:4-5.)

An article in Business Day on Monday incorrectly reported the Securities and Exchange Commission's position on stock options. The commission has ruled that exchanges cannot introduce options that are already traded on other exchanges.

Under pressure resulting from one of the worst winter service records in the history of the Long Island Rail Road, Francis S. Gabreski resigned yesterday as the line's president. Mr. Gabreski submitted his resignation to Richard Ravitch, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, after a meeting at the authority's offices on Madison Avenue. The resignation was effective immediately. Daniel T. Scannell, first vice chairman of the authority, was named acting president of the Long Island, the nation's largest commuter railroad. Mr. Scannell, who was chief executive officer of the New York City Transit Authority in the early 1970's, is a member of the authority board's subcommittee on the railroad's operations.

A record $3.5 billion in new cash flowed into the nation's money market funds during the most recent week, the Investment Company Institute reported yesterday. The current yield advantage the funds have over competing financial instruments, combined with uncertainty about the outlook for stocks and interest rates, was responsible for the huge gain, according to analysts.

A year after the torch was extinguished at the close of the 1980 Winter Olympics, remnants and reminders of the games linger everywhere in this tiny Adirondack village. Olympic pins, pennants, T-shirts, mugs and posters adorn windows of shops along Main Street. Flags from the 37 competing nations still flutter high above the speed-skating oval at the Lake Placid High School, where Eric Heiden won five gold medals. Hotels and motels offer customers complimentary postcards from the games, and residents are at a loss when asked what the central business district - a 10-block strip of hotels, restaurants and boutiques - was called before it became known as the Olympic Village.

A chart in Metropolitan Report last Thursday comparing college costs included an incorrect figure for Fordham University. The total annual cost for tuition, room and board will be $6,800 starting in September.

Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, taking issue with President Reagan's economic program, called today for more moderate monetary and budget policies. The Democrats, including Representative Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin, the committee chairman, called instead for more emphasis on structural changes, such as job training. After two years of bipartisan agreement, Democrats and Republicans, evenly divided on the 18-member panel, have split and staked out distinctly different positions, mirroring the debate over economic policy now under way. In part, the split represents an effort by committee Democrats to resume a role as the center of alternative economic thinking during Republican Presidencies, even though Republican control of the Senate has erased the Democratic majority on the committee.

Extending its spectacular late-Wednesday rally, the stock market moved broadly higher yesterday on a sharp increase in trading volume. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 12.41 points, to 966.81, after rebounding 18 points in Wednesday's final two hours. Analysts said that institutional investors, turning progressively more optimistic, loosened their purse strings to shake stock prices free of the lethargy that had prevailed during the last six weeks. ''The market's improvement stemmed partly from the report two days ago of a smaller-than-expected rise in the Consumer Price Index for January,'' said William M. LeFevre of Purcell, Graham & Company. ''This served to lower the inflationary expectations of investors and thus constituted a bullish development for stocks.''

Mayor Koch's office announced a $4.5 million overtime program yesterday that it said would let the Police Department assign 300 regular officers to fight street crime in 35 neighborhoods throughout New York City. The program will begin March 1 and end June 1. Under the program, the 300 officers will work their regular shifts and then, on overtime, return to the streets. Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire said the overtime would let the city maintain its present patrol strength and at the same time add special units to attack specific street crime problems - from male prostitution and muggings on Manhattan's East Side to store robberies in downtown Brooklyn.

Akron's rubber executives have long believed the best way to run a tire company is to make as many tires as possible. But the B.F. Goodrich Company is proving that a tire company does not necessarily have to follow that path to make a profit. Goodrich caught the industry by surprise last month when it announced it was giving up its new-car tire sales, which totaled about 3.7 million tires in 1979, to concentrate on the replacement tire market. This week, the company began a saturation advertising campaign for its new T/A line of high-performance tires for that market. They will sell in the $90 to $170 price range.

''ONCE upon a time ... '' The words have a magic that cuts through the noise of the surrounding world. Telling a story can be as simple as passing on a bit of news - which may be how the first story got told - or as complicated a thing as the creation of another world. A story may be told in a whisper to the only other person in a moonlit room, or roared out in a rich accent to great crowds. The storyteller - a parent, a friend or an entertainer - draws his listener in, in simple, age-old fashion. Today, storytelling is being cultivated as an art form in a groundswell of attention that began in the early 1970's, according to the National Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tenn., a major national storytelling organization. And marking the renascence this weekend will be the first New York Story Telling Conference, a twoday convocation of professional storytellers sponsored by Columbia University's Maison Fran,caise in the university's East Hall on College Walk, at Broadway and 116th Street.