What was going on when I was born?

The Reagan Administration announced plans today to tie welfare benefits to a work requirement, known as ''workfare,'' that it said could place as many as 800,000 people in community jobs. The proposal, which needs Congressional approval, was disclosed in the budget President Reagan submitted to Congress. David A. Stockman, the budget director, said that most welfare recipients, who are largely mothers with children, would be required to work about 20 hours a week.

OSAKA, Japan SHIZUO TSUJI leaned back in his maroon plush armchair, surveyed his ornate dining room with its chandeliers and Oriental rugs, and cut a slice of chocolate cake freshly baked by one of his students. ''Let's not talk for a few minutes, just eat,'' he said, with the air of one who knows how to savor the good things. As Japan's most famous gastronome, he has turned his appreciation of fine food into a career. An expert on French and Japanese cuisine, Mr. Tsuji heads the leading professional cooking school in Japan and has written 29 books on cooking, travel, music and medieval French banquet fare. Despite his professional specialization in French cuisine, Mr. Tsuji admits to a nostalgic delight when eating Japanese food. ''With French food, it's my work and my study,'' he said. ''I'm automatically curious and write about it. But when I eat the Japanese way, I don't take any notes. I wish my palate to have to talk.'' The food, he said, is ''like a souvenir of daily life, situations, circumstances of my friendships, music and paintings.''

President Reagan sent to Congress today a proposed $695 billion budget for the fiscal year 1982 that he portrayed as the centerpiece of his plan to ''stop runaway inflation'' and ''revitalize the economy'' by shrinking the role of the Federal Government. ''The next steps are up to Congress,'' Mr. Reagan said, and, in a brief budget message, he issued a blunt warning to Excerpts from documents, page B6. lawmakers who might oppose the many cuts in nonmilitary programs that he has made in the 1982 budget first drafted by President Carter. ''I urge the members of Congress to remember that last November the American people's message was loud and clear,'' Mr. Reagan declared. ''The mandate for change, expressed by the American people, was not my mandate; it was our mandate.''

In SportsMonday this week, a chart of the pairings for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's basketball tournament was incorrect. In the Mideast region, the bracket containing Indiana and the one containing Wake Forest should have been transposed.

''I urge the members of Congress to remember that last November the American people's message was loud and clear.

Confronted with mounting evidence that many taxicab drivers cannot find their way around New York City, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is expected to pass a regulation today to require all drivers to carry a detailed street map in their cabs. The specific map has yet to be decided upon, but officials said it would most likely be the ''Hagstrom New York 5-Boro Pocket Atlas,'' which sells for $3.75, or Geographia's ''5-Borough Street Guide of New York,'' which costs $2.95. Both have detailed street information, including house numbers, and an index. Whether the drivers of the city's 11,787 medallion taxis feel they need the map or not, they will be required to carry it or be subject to a fine. The new regulation will go into effect in 30 days if it is approved, as expected, at the commission's meeting today at its headquarters, 67 Wall Street, at 10 A.M.

International Detering Moscow from intervention in Poland was discussed Monday by President Reagan, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany. They agreed to try to use the expressed interest of the Soviet leadership in a meeting with Mr. Reagan as a form of leverage to avert any intervention. (Page A1, Column 1.) Poland's month-long labor peace ended as workers in the city of Lodz staged a one-hour warning strike and the authorities announced that large-scale military maneuvers would be held by the Warsaw Pact countries later this month. Lech Walesa, the leader of the independent union, conferred with the Prime Minister over charges of harassment against unionists in Lodz and other issues. (A8:4-6.)

Most of the nation's major banks lowered their prime lending rates yesterday by half a percentage point, to 18 percent, amid predictions by economists that further declines in this key rate are in the offing. ''This reduction is just one step down in what should be a farily steady decline of three or four percentage points by early summer,'' said Allen Sinai, senior economist of Data Resources Inc., an economic consulting firm. The half-point drop in the prime interest rate was widespread. The Bank of America, Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty and many others lowered their rates. In addition, several banks trimmed their broker loan rates to 17 percent, from 17 1/2 percent. These overnight loans to securities firms sometimes presage future interest rate movements.

Imperial Chemical Industries, a symbol of strength as Britain's largest industrial company, holds a special place in this nation's economy. The chemical giant has never had to lean on the Government for support, and its dividend has been paid regularly since the gloomy days of the 1930's. Besides that, although the inviolate dividend was sometimes raised, it was never reduced - until two weeks ago, that is. When the company announced its 1980 financial results, it said the dividend for the year was being cut by 13 cents a share, to 38 cents.

The Reagan Administration today proposed to cut the rapid growth of Federal borrowing in an effort to reduce the pressures on credit markets that have contributed to high interest rates. The budget presented to Congress would result in a total reduction of $21 billion in Federal loan demand for the fiscal year 1982, to $127.9 billion, down 14 percent from the $148.9 billion proposed in former President Carter's 1982 budget - mostly through cuts in Federal loan guarantee commitments. Furthermore, the Administration is removing some agencies' access to the Federal Financing Bank. Three named in the budget message were the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Rural Electrification Administration and the Student Loan Marketing Association.

The Thatcher Government in Britain presented a stark austerity budget today that raised taxes and reasserted the Government's priority that inflation, not unemployment, must be its principal target. The Government sharply increased excise taxes on such consumer items as beer, liquors, cigarettes and gasoline, and it indirectly raised some income taxes. It said that the total tax increase would amount to the equivalent of more than $6.6 billion this year. The economic measures included a reduction of interest rates by two percentage points. The Bank of England's ''minimum lending rate'' was cut to 12 percent from 14 percent as part of an effort to aid industry and increase exports.

A Chicago brokerage firm sued two other brokerage houses yesterday in Manhattan Federal court on charges that they had helped customers with inside information on a proposed takeover to make huge profits in Amax Inc. stock options. The Chicago firm, O'Connor & Associates, named Dean Witter Reynolds and A.G. Becker Inc., two of the nation's leading brokerage houses, along with the Standard Oil Company of California and Amax, the metals and coal supplier for which Socal has made a takeover bid. The insider charge, which involves options trading on the American Stock Exchange, is the first of several suits expected to be filed following last week's offer by California Standard to pay nearly $4 billion for the 80 percent of Amax that it does not already own. Before the Socal offer, Amax stock had been trading on the New York Stock Exchange at about $38 a share; the offer pushed the price of Amax's common stock up by almost $20.