What was going on when I was born?

Despite the defeat of the $500 million prison bond issue on Nov. 3, New York State prison officials say they still expect to have about 2,600 new inmate beds available by midsummer. But Thomas A. Coughlin 3d, the State Correction Commissioner, says the defeat will require new appropriations for support facilities for the prisoners who will occupy those beds. The cost would run to ''a minimum of $125 million,'' he said, for facilities ranging from new kitchen space to schools, and even that amount would provide fewer support services than the bond issue would have. And Mr. Coughlin, who noted that the state's prisons were operating at 111 percent of capacity, said he would also have to ask the Legislature for new spending authorization for three 512-bed prisons that were to have been constructed with the bond money.

The International Harvester Company, the No.1 maker of farm and construction equipment, reported yesterday that it lost $635.7 million on its regular business operations in the year ended Oct. 31, nearly 70 percent more than a year earlier. Harvester attributed the markedly wider operating loss in its 1981 fiscal year primarily to '' epressed world markets for its machinery, high interest expenses and industrywide price discounting.'' A spokesman for the company said that Harvester was optimistic that the United Automobile Workers Union would help the corporation negotiate a new credit line by accepting a proposal made previously to cut union benefits. He added that Harvester's salaried employees were going without raises, that stockholders were not getting dividends, that bankers holding loans were getting payments on interest but not on principal, and that many suppliers were holding the line on prices and expediting shipments to allow smaller inventories.

Lotte Lenya, a star of the German and American stage and films who championed the music of her husband, Kurt Weill, died in the Manhattan apartment of a friend last evening. She was 83 years old. Miss Lenya first attracted widespread attention in the 1928 Berlin production of Bertolt Brecht's and Weill's ''Threepenny Opera,'' and her fame was confirmed in the film version of 1931. Her stage career in this country was limited until after Weill's death in 1950. But with the 1954 Off Broadway revival of ''The Threepenny Opera'' she became a noted figure in the United States, subsequently appearing in numerous works of both Weill and Brecht as well as supervising and singing in a series of Weill recordings that inspired the present-day re-evaluation of his work. She also made a name for herself, independently of Weill, winning a Tony Award for her performance in ''Cabaret'' on Broadway and an Oscar for the film ''The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.''

Poland's Prime Minister and Communist Party leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, said today that the Politburo had instructed the Government to seek legislation banning strikes. He told the party's policy-making Central Committee that the move was needed because of the mounting economic, political and social crisis. The party leadership's initiative is focused at the heart of last year's agreement between the Government and the trade union movement Solidarity that gave the union the right to strike. General Jaruzelski made his speech in the morning, but it was withheld from the Polish public until late tonight. Solidarity leaders have not yet commented.

After half a century, the mold of British politics has been broken. That conclusion emerged inescapably today from the all but incredible by-election victory scored Thursday at Crosby, in the Liverpool suburbs, by the five-month-old alliance of the Social Democratic and Liberal Parties. Overturning a seemingly inv lnerable Conservative majority of 19,272 at the last general election, Shirley Williams won by 5,289 votes to become the first Social Democrat elected to the House of Commons under the party's own banner. An Awesome Demonstration So awesome was this latest demonstration of the alliance's electoral power that politicians and pundits alike found it difficult to keep their heads. Mrs. Williams's triumph, universally hailed as the most sensational British by-election result of the century, led some newspapers to describe her as the probable successor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Even the hard-headed bookmakers picked the alliance as odds-on favorites for the next general election.

There is a vision of America on the sidewalks here: A death's-head is cloaked in the Stars and Stripes, arms emerge from the flag, brandishing a scythe-like dagger and a bomb. Another wall poster displays a creature that is half-rodent, half-reptile, strangled by an Arab hand. The images are harsh and resemble the creations of Hieronymus Bosch. Yet in the view of some of America's West European allies, they are no more harsh, or absolutist, than the Reagan Administration's vision of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, whom Washington calls the most dangerous man in the world because of his perceived role in international terrorism. The Qaddafi regime, in the West European view, is more complex, and probably less dangerous, than the Reagan Administration is prepared to acknowledge. Washington's assessment, it is contended, is a deliberate oversimplification, possibly based on tainted information, that could prove inimical to Western interests in Libya's oil wealth and propel the colonel closer to the Soviet Union. The West European view is shared by some American oil men here.

The Columbia Graduate School of Social Work says that it plans to lower its enrollment from 600 students to 500 next year. The move is one of many signs that the social-work profession, if not declining, is at least beginning to stabilize after the growth years of the late 1960's and early 70's. One reason for this development is the decline in social spending over the last decade by the Federal Government, the social-work profession's biggest client. While the decline has not led to largescale layoffs of professional social workers, it has turned the social-work job market soft, according to those in the field. ''Social work is no longer a growth industry,'' said Barbara B. Blum, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services.

American and Spanish scientists have reported finding the earliest intact religious sanctuary from the early Stone Age at El Juyo Cave, an archeological site in northern Spain near the seaport city of Santander. The scientists said they believe the sanctuary was built 14,000 years ago, which would make it mankind's oldest known religious shrine. Other than burial sites, the previous oldest known shrines are in the Middle East and are about 9,000 years old. The El Juyo sanctuary contains a free-standing sculptured stone head, interpreted by the scientists as that of a supernatural being. On one side of the sculpture is the visage of a human being, and on the other is that of an animal, probably a cat.

Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel left open the possibility today that his Government might postpone a decision on the participation by four European nations in the Sinai peacekeeping force. The Israeli Cabinet is scheduled to meet Sunday to discuss the makeup of the multinational force that is due to move into Sinai when Israel withdraws from the area in April. Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel has said he opposes the participation of Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands in the force because of their support for positions that the Israelis see as pro-Palestinian. 'Clarification' Reported In announcing their willingness to participate in the Sinai force, the Europeans had made statements reiterating these views. Tonight, after Mr. Shamir left Washington following talks with Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., Israeli diplomats here said Mr. Haig had apparently discussed with the Europeans a ''clarification'' of their position that might make a compromise with Israel possible.

The Protestant church in China is experiencing a revival after its suppression during the Cultural Revolution, according to a delegation of American Protestants that has been visiting here for two and a half weeks. The delegation of 18 clergymen and laymen from the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. was given unusual access by the Chinese Government. They were permitted to visit 11 Protestant churches in five cities and were allowed to talk freely to hundreds of Chinese Christians. ''The self-perception of Christians we have met is that Christianity is enjoying a dramatic rebirth,'' said the Rev. M. William Howard Jr., president of the National Council of Churches. ''The church is enjoying an increased vitality unlike anything they've ever known before.''

Prime Minister Menachem Begin was described by his doctors today as being in ''very satisfactory'' condition after he slipped in the bathroom of his Jerusalem home Thursday and broke his upper left thigh near the hip joint. The 68-year-old Mr. Begin is expected to be hospitalized for two weeks.

Paul H. Nitze, the chief United States arms negotiator, said today that there were ''prospects for reaching a fair, equitable and verifiable'' agreement with the Soviet Union in the talks that will open here Monday on the reduction of nuclear missiles in Europe. The two nations have ''every reason to be sincere in their efforts to reach agreement on the reduction of nuclear weapons,'' Mr. Nitze said on his arrival for the first formal Soviet-American arms negotiations since the Reagan Administration took office. Mr. Nitze, answering reporters' questions after reading a prepared statement at the airport, said he would be both ''reasonable and tough'' in the talks.