What was going on when I was born?

The Rangers gained a place in the Stanley Cup quarterfinals last night by defeating the Los Angeles Kings, 6-3, at Madison Square Garden. They took the three-of-five-game preliminary playoff, three games to one. After the Kings had come from one goal behind to tie the score three times during the first two periods. the Rangers broke away. Ron Duguay had two goals in the game, his fourth and fifth of the playoffs, and an assist. The other Ranger goals were by Lance Nethery, his first of the playoffs; Ulf Nilsson, his fifth; Tom Laidlaw, his first, and Anders Hedberg, his third. The Rangers outshot the Kings, 48-27.

The space shuttle Columbia, its rockets spewing orange fire and a long trail of white vapor, blasted its way into earth orbit today, carrying two American astronauts on a daring journey to test the world's first re-usable spaceship. Soon after they settled into orbit, John W. Young, a civilian, and Capt. Robert L. Crippen of the Navy focused a television camera on the Columbia's tail section and discovered that more than a dozen heat-shielding tiles had ripped off, possibly because of the stresses of launching. Project officials said that the tile loss should not shorten the flight or endanger the lives of the astronauts when the Columbia plunges back into the atmosphere, glowing red-hot from frictional heat, to attempt a runway landing Tuesday. The projected 36-orbit, 54 1/2-hour flight is scheduled to end at Edwards Air Force Base in California. 'We've Got a Super Vehicle' ''I'm just not concerned about it,'' Neil B. Hutchinson, a flight director at Mission Control in Houston, said in discussing the tile problem at a news conference this afternoon. ''We've got a super vehicle up there.''

Governor Carey has prepared a legislative program to eliminate many regulations on the state's cable television industry. One proposal could open the way for new cable television companies to compete in places where there are now, in effect, exclusive franchises. Most of the bills have already been sent to the Legislature, although the Governor has not yet formally announced the program. Some other elements of Mr. Carey's package are these: - The amount municipalities could charge cable operators for the right to ''wire'' their jurisdictions would be limited.

''Aside from all the esthetic considerations, the continued erection of the so-called 'skyscraper' constitutes a menace to public health and safety and an offence which must be stopped,'' proclaimed a writer in the American Architect and Building News in 1908, when the tallest building in New York was the 657-foot-high Metropolitan Life Insurance tower, and the slender Flat-iron Building was a mere six years old. So public outcry over the size of new buildings in New York is nothing new: it has been going on almost since the first skyscrapers were erected. But the immense wave of new construction that the city is now experiencing - a wave totaling some 16 million square feet of office space, not to mention numerous hotels, apartment buildings and institutional structures - has brought forth perhaps the greatest public debate over how Manhattan should grow since the early years of this century, when the hue and cry over the great bulk of the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway led to the passage of the first zoning laws in the United States. The debate is focused on the City Planning Commission's announced intention to revise the city's zoning ordinance, at least as far as it applies to midtown Manhattan development.

Following are excerpts from conversations the astronauts had with Shuttle Launch Control in Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, as recorded by The New York Times: GEORGE F. PAGE, director of shuttle operations (after reading President Reagan's message): John, we can't do more from a launch team than say we sure wish you an awful lot of luck. We're with you a thousand percent. And we're awful proud to have been a part of it. Good luck, John. JOHN YOUNG: Cripp and I are mighty proud to have worked with you fellows. You're absolutely professional - the best there is. And that's a mighty fine speech and we sure appreciate it. SHUTTLE LAUNCH CONTROL: As preparation for main engine ignition, the main fuel cell heaters have been turned off. T minus 3 minutes 57 seconds and counting. The final helium purge on the shuttle main engine has been started in preparation for engine start. The liquid replenish system has been turned off in preparation for pressurization of the tanks for the launch. T minus 3 minutes 35 seconds and counting.

For a decade, Isuzu Motors has produced dieselengine trucks and small commercial vehicles that have been marketed worldwide by the General Motors Corporation, and it will soon begin assembling General Motor's little ''J'' cars, But Americans will shortly be introduced to Isuzu under its own name, as the company begins selling its highly regarded diesel-engine passenger cars in the United States. The 65-year-old Japanese company has just kicked off a vigorous advertising campaign in the United States for its diesel-powered models. ''We are now marketing the Gemini and we will soon introduce a new, very smart coupe, in both diesel and gasoline engines,'' said Toshio Okamoto, Isuzu's 72-year-old president. ''If you see it, you will want to buy it.''

An Episcopal church here took its Palm Sunday procession to the streets today, stopping at neighborhood trouble spots for prayers asking deliverance ''from hopelessness and despair, from empty political promises'' and from the ravages of urban blight. The procession from the church, Ascension Church at South and New York Streets, was part of the celebration of Palm Sunday, observed in nearly all Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Palm Sunday begins Holy Week, the most solemn period of the Christian year. Holy Week devotions end Saturday, after Good Friday rites mark the Crucifixion of Jesus, and just before the Easter Sunday celebration of the Resurrection. The day is named for the palm branches crowds laid in front of Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem the week before He was crucified. Since those same crowds would later call for His death, Holy Week worship stresses repentance for humanity's part in Jesus' suffering.

Hundreds of youths, most of them black, rampaged through the Brixton section of south London this evening in a second night of clashes with the police. Hurling stones, bottles and homemade firebombs at the advancing ranks of patrolmen, the rioters set fire to several shops and overturned more than a dozen automobiles, setting most afire. But with more than 1,000 policemen on emergency duty in an area of no more than 20 blocks, tonight's disturbances were far less severe than the ones last night in the run-down neighborhood, which is two miles south of central London. Dozens of Policemen Injured In the two nights of disorders, more than 30 policemen have suffered injuries requiring hospitalization and dozens of others have been less seriously hurt. At least 20 civilians have been injured, two dozen buildings have been destroyed, and there have been nearly 200 arrests.

A picture caption yesterday incorrectly identified the maker of a disk kite flown in Central Park. The kite was made by Margaret Watts.

The space shuttle Columbia lost more than a dozen of its heat-protection tiles today, but space agency officials here said they were quite confident that there was no danger to the space shuttle or its two astronauts. The loss, discovered by the astronauts in the first couple hours of the mission, apparently occurred in the launching of the craft. Teams of technicians were put to work gathering all possible data on the tiles with the expectation that the loss did in fact pose no danger. Even if some unsuspected hazards are identified, the officials say they expect to find ways to deal with them.

Tom Watson stood up to the pressure of the back nine today to win the 45th Masters Tournament by two strokes over Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus. Miller, Nicklaus and at least three others threatened Watson for varying periods of time. During that stretch Watson got out of trouble by saving pars on the 12th hole, where he hit his first putt eight feet beyond the cup; at the par-5 13th, where a bad second shot dropped into Rae's Creek, and at the 17th, where he aggressively blasted out of a sand trap to four feet. After standing on the 15th green and watching Nicklaus score a birdie on the adjacent 16th green, Watson calmly knocked in a three-foot putt for birdie.

West Germany, ''the engine of Europe,'' is in the midst of recession, and its entrenched economic problems have raised nagging questions about whether the country will ever regain its role as Western Europe's financial leader. Few bankers or economists doubt that there will be a rebound in German business activity in the first half of 1982. But they say there are indications that the nation's business foundations have been severely damaged, bringing a sense of fragility to Germany's image as a resourceful, resilient economic power. The country's current economic problems are the result, at least in part, of higher oil prices. But there are other, more troubling, aspects that portend longer-term ills. They include declining exports, fewer technological advances, higher labor costs, a lack of skilled workers and increased investment abroad rather than at home.