What was going on when I was born?

This small town of apple orchards and maple forests has used its oldest weapon, the town meeting, to keep out the nation's largest toxic waste disposal plant. At an emotional meeting of 3,000 citizens last night, the town agreed to drop a plan to rezone the local granite quarry for residential use in exchange for a pledge by the quarry's owner not to sell it to a waste disposal company. Angry residents had threatened to rezone the site after they learned that the owner, E. Kennard Fletcher, had offered it for sale to the IT Corporation of Wilmington, Calif. ''If they had cable television in Moscow, they could see how democracy really works,'' Richard Emmet, the chairman of Westford's Board of Selectmen, exulted after the meeting. Mr. Fletcher, whose family has lived in Westford since the 17th Century, said he preferred ''to settle this issue by cooperation rather than by confrontation.''

President Hosni Mubarak, moving swiftly to consolidate his rule, ordered a nationwide roundup of Moslem fundamentalists today, according to Egyptian sources. The sources said security forces had swept through towns across the country, arresting hundreds and possibly thousands of Moslem militants suspected of involvement in demonstrations and violence against the regime. The Government would neither confirm nor deny reports of the crackdown, which comes 10 days after President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated by four men whom the Government has linked with a Moslem fundamentalist group named Takfir Wahigra, or Atonement and Repentance. Other Arrests Since Killing There have been many other arrests of both religious and political opponents of the regime since the assassination, but the Government has declined to give any names or numbers.

Senate Republican leaders told White House officials today that Congress would reject most of the new round of budget cuts proposed by President Reagan for this fiscal year. In a closed meeting, the Senators urged that the Administration focus instead on reductions in the budgets for the fiscal years 1983 and 1984, according to several participants in the meeting. Those reductions would be more politically palatable, the senators said, and by focusing on those fiscal years the Administration would divert attention from its inability to make major additional cuts this year. ''We were not negotiating,'' Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., Republican of Tennessee, the majority leader, said after the private luncheon meeting in his office. ''This was the first effort to expose the White House to the recommendations of the committee chairmen.''

Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan announced today that he wanted Federal regulators to defer a scheduled increase in the maximum interest rate paid to 40 million Americans with passbook savings accounts. He acted under pressure from the nation's savings banks and savings and loan associations. The announcement by the Treasury Secretary was viewed as certain to delay a half-point increase in the maximum rate that had been scheduled to go into effect Nov. 1. Mr. Regan did not say how long passbook savers might have to wait for their interest rates to rise. But the delay presumably will last until interest rates have declined sufficiently to at least reduce the losses that savings institutions have been suffering.

Three months ago, Eugenie L. was pressed to the rail of a leaky sailboat in the Florida Straits, straining for her first sight of the United States after her boat's clandestine departure from Haiti and a month at sea. Today, the 17-year-old sat in a neat classroom here laboring over her penmanship while the Dutchess County hillsides outside the big windows were ablaze with autumn color. ''It is true that sometimes I feel sadness,'' she said of her time under supervision at the school here. ''It is very nice, but I would rather be with my brother in Miami.''

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli soldier-statesman, died of a heart ailment today in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Center. He was 66 years old. Mr. Dayan was rushed to the medical center around midnight last night, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. A former Chief of Staff, Defense Minister and Foreign Minister, he was an architect of Israel's victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars as well as the Camp David accords that led to the peace treaty with Egypt. He resigned as Foreign Minister in October 1979, citing differences with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy toward the Palestinian Arabs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Prize money again will be offered under the table to the leading finishers in this year's New York City Marathon, according to coaches of many of the top runners. Although the marathon, a five-borough race to be run Oct. 25, is technically an amateur event, the coaches say they have been assured privately that money other than allowable expenses will be paid to as many as the first 12 men and the top 10 women. First prize for the men has been set at $14,000, with the No. 1 woman receiving $8,000. The coaches and some of their athletes agreed to discuss the prizemoney structure. They asked not to be identified to protect the runners' amateur status.

The morning after their Yankees won the American League championship, thousands of fans nearly ringed Yankee Stadium seeking tickets for the World Series. Many had arrived by sunset Thursday. Others were not on hand at the Bronx ball park until late yesterday morning, by which time the line stretched from the sales office through the stadium plaza, under the elevated IRT tracks on River Avenue, around the corner to East 161st Street and Ruppert Place, almost back to where it originated. ''There is nothing like Yankee fever,'' said Ahylia Bickram, of the Bronx, who stood in line from 7:30 A.M. until 1:15 P.M. ''I just want to be there when they win.'' Her smile betrayed no doubt that the Yankees would do just that, whether they faced the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Montreal Expos when the World Series opens at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. The Expos' 4-1 victory last night put them ahead, two games to one, in the best-of-five series.

Fierce fighting was going on today between guerrillas and Moroccan forces in the Western Sahara some 650 miles southeast of Rabat, according to reports reaching here. Moroccan military sources said it was one of the biggest battles in the conflict for control of the former Spanish colony.

A major electoral test for Spain's fragile democracy is about to take place in Galicia, whose wary people have expressed their sentiments about politics and politicians over the last few years by not voting. Next Tuesday, Galicia, a poor agricultural region in northwest Spain, will elect a parliament for the first time and politicians here are fearful that their home-rule body will emerge stillborn, a victim of abstention. A weak turnout will be a severe indictment of the process of granting limited self-government to Spain's regions, and a blow to Galicia's long-repressed cultural and political identity. The 71-member parliament, representing some 2.6 million Galicians, will be similar to those already functioning in Catalonia and the Basque region.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher brought the Conservative Party's quarrelsome conference to a rousing conclusion today with a resolute rejection of what she called ''false hopes and spurious remedies'' for economic difficulties. Responding to the critics within her party who warned this week that she was heading for a stinging repudiation by the electorate, the Prime Minister was in a fighting mood. She said she was glad that former Prime Minister Edward Heath, one of the sternest critics, had said his piece, and she insisted that ''the diversity of our party is not a source of weakness but one of the measures of our strength.'' She showed not the slightest sign of yielding to Mr. Heath's calls for a fresh approach. Denying that she was bound by dogma, insisting that she wanted only success for Britain, Mrs. Thatcher said she could not ''bow to pressure by taking a route I know will lead us further from that goal.''

Inter-American Press Group Elects Scripps as President RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 16 (AP) - The Inter-American Press Association today elected Charles E. Scripps as its president for 1981-82. Mr. Scripps is director of Scripps-Howard Newspapers of Cincinnati. The organization also awarded a New York Times Foundation scholarship to Susan Knight, a reporter on The Arizona Daily Star of Tuscon, to study the history of the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa.