What was going on when I was born?

The touchdown that won today's divisional playoff game for the Cincinnati Bengals was a 16-yard pass from a veteran quarterback, Ken Anderson, to a rookie wide receiver, Cris Collinsworth. It came in the fifth minute of the final period, and it gave the Bengals a 28-21 victory over the Buffalo Bills. By winning, the Bengals advanced to the American Football Conference championship game, which will be played here at Riverfront Stadium Sunday against the San Diego Chargers. Collinsworth's touchdown was a positive play, but the most memorable one of the game was negative. Buffalo had an opportunity to tie the game with three minutes remaining when it made an apparent first down at the Cincinnati 16-yard line.

The head of Poland's military Government will meet the ambassadors of the 10 European Common Market countries in Warsaw Monday, the West German Foreign Ministry in Bonn said today. The ministry said that Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's Prime Minister, had invited the envoys to the meeting. The talks will take place on the same day that the Foreign Ministers of the 10 European Community nations are due to meet in Brussels to discuss the Polish situation and Western Europe's reaction to it. With the shipyards at Gdansk, the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, scheduled to resume work tomorrow, the Warsaw Government promised to increase wages to offset some of the steep rises in the prices of staple goods, according to Polish broadcasts.

A new regulation limiting the number of taxicabs that can impose a 50-cent night surcharge went into effect in New York City on New Year's Day, and by the end of the holiday weekend some people were already avoiding the higher-priced cabs. Fleet cabs, about 20 percent of the 11,787 medallion taxis in the city, are still permitted the surcharge, notice of which must be displayed on both front doors. Nonfleet drivers can no longer impose the charge. The Sunday surcharge has been revoked.

SAN FRANCISCO IN their locker room, the other Giants were up and around. Some were shaking hands with each other. Some were in the shower. Some were in the trainer's room, slicing the tape off their ankles. And some were already getting dressed. But at his locker, Gary Jeter, still in his uniform, was sitting on a stool with his head down and his back to everybody else, almost as if he didn't want to face his teammates. ''He was holding me,'' Gary Jeter was saying now of Dan Audick, the offensive tackle who had lined up against him throughout the 49ers' 38-24 victory yesterday. ''The play was over, and he kept pushing me downfield.''

An article Saturday gave an incor- rect date for the announcement by At- torney General William French Smith that none of the evidence or allega- tions against Richard V. Allen, the na- tional securi ty adviser, merited the appointment o f a special prosecutor. The correct d ate is Dec. 23.

In 1980, a cluttered little Italian apparel company became an official sponsor of America's Olympic track team and also signed a contract to build a factory outside Moscow to sew jeans for Russian youth. By any standard, Maglificio Calcificio Torinese, a little company that works out of a drab stucco factory in an industrial neighborhood of Turin, is extremely unusual. The money for most of this activity, the owner said, came from selling dungarees called Jesus Jeans. This irreverent venture has harvested for the company storms of protest in many countries, even driving it, like some Biblical money-changer, out of some markets.

The party's over. The Giants, a losing team that had suddenly became a winning team, lost today to the 49ers, 38-24, and their season was ended. After falling behind by 24-7, the Giants fought back, as they did in their late-season drive to reach the playoffs. But as they did five weeks ago in a 17-10 loss to the 49ers here, they beat themselves wi th mistakes. The 49ers, 6-point favorites, had the best record (13-3) of the league's 28 teams. The Giants, 4-12 a year ago, finished this time at 9-7, and their 27-21 upset of the Philadelphia Eagles in the National Conference wild-card playoff game a week ago showed how far they had come.

West Side Federal Savings and Loan, a big New York thrift institution, was losing about $10 million a month when Citizens Savings of California came to the rescue last September. Also sputtering at that time, but nevertheless desirable for its location, was Washington Savings and Loan of Florida. Banking regulators allowed Citizens to pick up the pieces there, too. By taking over both troubled East Coast banks, Citizens instantly became the country's first thrift institution to cross state boundaries. And just last Friday, the bank rechristened its 136 branches in California, New York and Florida with green-and-white banners bearing the new logo of First Nationwide Savings.

The bullet holes stitched into the sides of buildings at this border crossing into Honduras are not, like those in so many parts of Nicaragua, traces of an old war. The Sandinist leaders of the country say they fear that they could be the precursors of a new one. Stepped-up attacks along the frontier by those presumed to be exiles bent on retaking Nicaragua are being cited b y the revolutionary Government as one of the reasons for putting the country on a virtual war footing. The military buildup that the United States has called an impediment to improving relations between the two nations is continuing. Speeches by leaders of the two-an d-a-half-year-old Sandinist Government are devoted almost entir ely to warnings about the coming of the ''counterrevolutionaries.''

Anthony Attanasio and Lori Reinhold are college senio rs whose major academic pursuit at the moment is a study of what happens when you load little gray weights into a model boat and laun ch it in a 95-foot-long indoor canal. Peter Gross, a classmate, dreams up ways to modify an aircraft carrier so that the 1,000-degree exhaust heat from the vessel's engines, venting on the flight deck, will not damage landing helicopters. And Robin Eng, who confidently predicts he will have no trouble finding a job when he graduates in June, fine-tunes equations that he hopes will show whether hydrogen-powered commercial ships will ever be practical. A College Without Tuition All four attend a tiny college that charges no tuition, admits no more than 25 students a year, has conferred only 1,000 degrees in its 92-year history and trains undergraduates who dream of becoming the Frank Lloyd Wrights of the shipbuilding world.

Citing reports of a surge in subway crime in New York, Council President Carol Bellamy urged yesterday that officers from the city's Police Department supplement the transit police force. She said that the transit force was understaffed and warned that it might lose as many as 150 recruits now in training to the city department. Miss Bellamy is on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. In a letter to Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire, she noted that the transit police had an authorized strength of 3,385 uniformed officers this month. But she said there were only 3,073 on the payroll now, in cluding those in training.

A troubled national economy, Federal budget cuts and election year infighting will dominate the 205th session of the Legislature, which opens this week. The session, which comes in an election year for the Governor and the Legislature, will afford politicians few opportunities to create the kinds of popular programs that were once the norm in years when voters were going to the polls in statewide races. Aides to Governor Carey have offered a portrait of gloom in describing their plans for the new year. In recent weeks, administration officials have been deciding where to prune the state budget, and how to increase state revenues without a major tax increase. The Governor, according to his aides, is leaning toward cutting the link between state and Federal taxes in at least some areas to recoup revenue the state would otherwise lose because of Federal tax cuts. State tax laws are tied to Federal tax laws in many areas, and the tax cuts enacted by Congress last year had the side effect of cutting state taxes as well.