What was going on when I was born?

Columbia College, the last all-male college in the Ivy League, announced yesterday that it would begin accepting women as freshmen in the fall of 1983. An agreement between Columbia University and Barnard College, its sister institution, has also been revised to allow Barnard increased control over the appointment of tenured faculty members. Barnard will continue to function as an undergraduate college for women. The announcements, made jointly by the two institutions, brought to an end more than a year and a half of negotiations. The negotiations were aimed at increasing cooperation between the two colleges, although Columbia College had wanted to preserve its status as an all-male institution. While these negotiations proved unsuccessful, the presidents of both institutions hailed the agreement yesterday as a positive step.

Consumer prices rose four-tenths of 1 percent in December, the Labor Department reported today, bringing the rise for 1981 to only 8.9 percent, the lowest annual increase since 1977. A slowing in price increases across the board, except in medical care , contrib uted to the improvement for the year. In addition to the impact of the recession, inflation was slowed by unexpectedly small increas es in food and energy prices, a decline at the end of the year in h ousing costs and a drop in interest rates. Medical care costs, however, rose 12.5 percent during the year, the largest jump since World War II. Rate Trend Lower At the end of the year, the rate of inflation was even lower than for 1981 as a whole. In the last three months, the Consumer Price Index was rising at an annual rate of 5.3 percent. The December increase, if it continued for 12 months, would translate into an annual rate of 5.2 percent. But while many economists expect inflation to continue to slow down, they do not predict it will continue at December's low rate.

A clandestine rebel radio station said today that two United States military advisers took part in a Salvadoran Army attack this month in which 70 civilians were slain.

The snow lies deep and fresh in the gentle valleys and hollows between the shadowed ridgelines here, so that when game animals move in the woods, they leave clear tracks for the hunter's eye. The town is a small splotch of population, 18,000 people on the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike as it races west across the state 80 miles from Boston. The trees press close in on the town, which fingers back among the trees, and the woods often ring at this time of year with the rifles of hunters after game. Sometimes the bullets whine too close, so that the workers picking over the piles of car parts in the field behind Eddie Godin's Ludlow Auto Salvage Company go running to the shelter of the yard's green metal office on Highway 21, which is Center Street, the main road through town. ''That,'' says Mr. Godin, with a grim and ruddy smile, ''is why I don't hunt.'' But many of his neighbors do, and the whine and pok of stray bullets here are accepted as a fact of life.

The Reagan Administration today formally linked progress in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union to Moscow's involvement in what it called ''the continuing repression of the Polish people.'' Dean Fischer, the State Department spokesman, said the Administration's ''interest in meaningful arms reduction negotiations, including reductions in strategic arms, is undiminished.'' But Mr. Fischer went on to say that talks on reducing strategic nuclear arsenals ''cannot be insulated from other events.'' ''Indeed, the Secretary has emphasized that the continuing repression of the Polish people - in which Soviet responsibility is clear - obviously constitutes a major setback to the prospects for constructive East-West relations,'' he said. ''There can be no question but that the climate of East-West relations in turn has a serious effect upon the prospects for moving forward in arms control.''

A State Supreme Court justice yesterday ruled against District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of Manhattan in his lawsuit against the state's Chief Judge, Lawrence H. Cooke. But the District Attorney's office said he would appeal. Mr. Morgenthau had challenged Judge Cooke's authority to change the way in which 97 temporary State Supreme Court judgeships would be awarded in New York City and had sought an injunction to prevent the new system from going into effect next Monday. In his ruling, Justice Andrew R. Tyler dismissed the suit on two grounds. He said Mr. Morgenthau had no legal right to sue the Chief Judge, a decision that would itself be enough to warrant a dismissal.But he went on to say that because the matter was so important, he would rule on the main issue of whether the C hief Judge's actions were constitutional.

On the ninth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, demonstrators marched here today to support a legislative campaign to reverse that ruling. Antiabortion leaders met with President Reagan, who reiterated his longstanding personal opposition to abortion. But they said that the President had not promised to give the abortion issue a high priority or to use his political muscle to push an antiabortion bill through Congress. ''We did not ask for that commitment, nor did we get it,'' said J.C. Willke, president of the National Right to Life Committee. The antiabortion leaders conceded that Mr. Reagan was continuing to focus his attention on the economic matters that have dominated the first year of his Presidency. In addition, they said sharp divisions within the antiabortion camp itself were hindering efforts to gather support in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Reggie Jackson ended five years as one of the most colorful and controversial players on the Yankees yesterday when he agreed to a four-year contract with the California Angels for close to $1 million a season. The agreement ended weeks of pursuit by the Angels, Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves, although the Yankees pursued their former star somewhat at a distance without making a firm offer. When the contract was announced, the Yankees issued a statement that expressed regret and praised Jackson for having contributed ''greatly to the success of the Yankees,'' and extolled him as a future candidate for the baseball Hall of Fame. Jackson, who joined the Yankees as one of the first free agents in 1976, thereby completed a career in New York that saw him become a World Series hero and a critic of Billy Martin, former manager of the Yankees, and even of George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the club. His contract ended last season and, after the Yankees did not sign him to another, he became a free agent again in November.

In the belief that the biggest problem of consumers is too much government, the Reagan Administration has spentan active yea r giving ''regulatory relief'' to business. This mainly took the form of rescinding some rules, suspending others that were about to take effect, pending review, and reducing enforcement of still others. While the business community applauded these efforts, consumer and environmental groups opposed them. The long-term impact on consumers is expected to depend, to a great degree, on whether industry passes along the savings from regulatory relief and, in areas of health and safety, whether industry shoulders more of the burden for selfregulation. According to an Administration report on President Reagan's first year, the Task Force on Regulatory Relief, led by Vice President Bush, saved businesses and, indirectly, consumers about $2 billion in annual operating costs and about $5 billion in one-time capital investment costs. In addition, new regulations, screened by the Office of Management and Budget, were issued at half the customary rate.

After tacitly allowing Boris Pasternak's country house to serve as an unofficial museum and memorial for the 22 years since his death, the Soviet literary establishment is demanding that the dacha be vacated for a ''productive'' writer. Heirs of the poet and writer, whose ''Doctor Zhivago'' brought Mr. Pasternak fame in the West and denunciation at home, have vowed to fight the Writers Union and its financial arm, Litfund, to preserve the museum that they have tended and maintained since 1960. The house and, across a broad field, Mr. Pasternak's grave under three tall pine trees, draw thousands of admirers every year, including many Westerners. On the anniversaries of the writer's birth and death and at Easter, the pilgrims bring bouquets and gather to recite Mr. Pasternak's lyric verses, including some poems from ''Doctor Zhivago'' that have yet to be published in the Soviet Union.

Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet physicist, is appealing for international pressure to bring about the release of a fellow dissident from prison, two members of Congress who recently returned from the Soviet Union said today. Mr. Sakharov said in the appeal made public by the United States legislators that Yuri F. Orlov, 57 years old, who is also a physicist, had been imprisoned for the third time in the labor camp where he has been held for five years.

Candice Lee Carpenter of Oakland, N.J., was sentenced to 25 years in jail today for her attempt to smuggle seven pounds of heroin out of Thailand last September.