What was going on when I was born?

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. traveled to London Sunday with a loose package of negotiating ideas that he hoped would help end the dispute over the Falkland Islands. Argentine officials and foreign diplomats said, however, that they were not optimistic about the prospects for a settlement. The package of ideas Mr. Haig took to London, the Argentine officials and foreign diplomats said, includes a simultaneous pullback of the British Navy and a withdrawal of Argentine forces from the islands, but only after Britain recognizes Argentine sovereignty. Britain has entertained the proposal in the past of giving Argentina sovereignty while allowing Britain to administer the islands, as Britain does in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. But the Argentine package rules out British administration.

Carrying a silver cross that glinted in the sunshine and swinging a thurible of incense, clergymen and choir members wound through the ivy-covered front garden at the Church of the Transfiguration at Fifth Avenue and 29th Street. At their feet were signs of springtime rebirth. Daffodils poked their yellow caps through the greenery. Overhead, in a budding tree, sparrows chirped noisily. The church group stood before an 86-year-old limestone statue of Christ the King that had been toppled and smashed by vandals just four months ago. But yesterday, as Christians celebrated Easter and the Resurrection, congregants of the church saw their statue restored and blessed.

Bright balloon clusters danced above the elegant pews and the ''Hallelujahs'' were syncopated in St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church on Park Avenue yesterday, where Easter arrived at the 9 A.M. communion service like a gospel jubilee with country-jazz overtones. There was foot-tapping and hand-clapping and bell-ringing and guitar-strumming amid the Byzantine grandeurs of the 62-year-old church, long regarded as the city's most fashionable starting point for the Easter parade. ''Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea - joy to you and me!'' proclaimed the choir of adults and children in green and blue robes. From packed balconies and extra chairs in the sanctuary, the congregation sang out the 1,600-year-old Nicene Creed to the beat of a guitar, a tambourine and a piano that was downright honky-tonk.

Harlem Commonwealth Council Inc. has obtained effective control of the Freedom National Bank, the only black-owned bank in New York, following its purchase of a large block of the bank's convertible preferred stock. James H. Dowdy, a bank director and president of the Council, said last Friday that the purchase ''effectively defeats any attempt'' by an outside investor group to gain control of the bank. Travers J. Bell Jr. and associates have been accumulating Freedom National's common stock and, according to Mr. Dowdy, recently stated their intention to the Comptroller of the Currency to make a tender offer for a majority of the shares. Mr. Bell controls Daniels & Bell Inc., the only New York Stock Exchange member firm owned by blacks.

One member of the jury that convicted Luis Marin on Saturday night of arson and murder in the Stouffer's Inn fire indicated today that the panel had decided on the verdict in large measure because of the defendant's own accounts of the events. Mr. Marin, a 26-year-old former coffee waiter at the hotel in Harrison, N.Y., never took the witness stand. But testimony by others citing his varying accounts - of starting an accidental fire and putting it out, leaving the building and saving guests - seemed instrumental in the guilty verdict. The juror, Anthea Frankl of Ossining, said, ''We decided in the end that he started the fire so he could put it out and be a hero.'' The prosecution had offered that as a motive, saying Mr. Marin had sought the hero role in an effort to avoid being dismissed from his job.

Five days after they were supposed to begin their season, the Yankees finally opened yesterday, and what was the big hurry? The Yankees, thwarted by snow in three previous attempts to open, unveiled their radically altered team at Yankee Stadium, and the debut was a flop. The Chicago White Sox, the only other major league team that had not played any games because of bad weather, swept a doubleheader, winning the first game, 7-6, in 12 innings, and the second, 2-0, in nine. Rich Gossage, the fourth Yankee pitcher in the game that Ron Guidry had started, gave up the decisive run in the opener as Bill Almon lashed a towering triple and scored on Ron LeFlore's single. In the second game, in which Tommy John pitched well but lost, Britt Burns and Salome Barojas stopped the Yankees on five hits. Tony Bernazard doubled home one run and scored the other as Steve Kemp singled.

With overtime costs running twice as high as projected, Mayor Koch has ordered the heads of New York City agencies to file reports with him on what they are doing to control those costs. The deadline for the reports is today. The order from the Mayor comes at a time of increasing concern among officials about overtime expenses. The city now expects that overtime costs for the fiscal year that ends June 30 will be $139 million. Last June, when it adopted the budget, it projected costs of $70 million. About 90 percent of the overtime occurs in the Police, Fire, Sanitation and Correction Departments. Officials say the costs have risen much faster than expected because many more employees retired than anticipated, meaning much routine work had to be done on overtime.

An Israeli soldier with an automatic rifle shot his way into one of Islam's holiest shrines, the Dome of the Rock, and sprayed the inside of the mosque with gunfire today, killing at least two Arabs and wounding at least nine. Israeli policemen and border troops in riot gear swarmed onto the Temple Mount, stormed the mosque and captured the gunman within about 20 minutes. They escorted him out through a howling mob of Moslems who had streamed to the site from all corners of the Old City. The police identified the assailant as Alan Harry Goodman, 37 years old, who apparently moved to Israel from Baltimore in 1977. Link to Extremists Among the belongings found in his room in the Beit Hakerem section of Jerusalem were fliers from the Kach Movement, a small extremist group of ultranationalists led by Rabbi Meir Kahane. They advocate the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the replacement of the mosques on the Temple Mount with a Jewish temple. (A spokesman for the group denied any connection with the attack, United Press International reported, and said, ''We do not condone it and we condemn it.'')

While the Rev. Sun Myung Moon defends himself against charges of tax fraud in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the religious and political mission of the church he heads is under examination in the New York State Court of Appeals. And although the issues before New York's highest court ostensibly concern the subtleties of tax policy, the case has sparked all of the emotion associated with Mr. Moon's evangelical Christian movement. It has also intensified debate about the proper role of religious organizations in politics. Concerned over whether their own political activities could affect their tax-exempt status, an array of mainstream religious organizations have filed ''friends of the court'' briefs on behalf of Mr. Moon's Unification Church. They include the National Council of Churches, the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, the National Association of Evangelicals and the American Jewish Congress.

Britain imposed a blockade around the Falkland Islands this morning, ready to sink any Argentine warship that came closer than 200 miles to the disputed archipelago. But there were no reports of naval engagements in the South Atlantic in the first hour, and it appeared increasingly unlikely that the Argentine fleet intended to enter the forbidden area, where British submarines were lurking, waiting to intercept and attack any potential targets. Although the risk of an imminent clash between the two navies in the South Atlantic seemed to have receded, there was no hard evidence of progress on the underlying dispute over ownership of the islands. Haig Returns to London Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. returned to London from Buenos Aires at dawn, ready to resume his peacemaking mission. He was scheduled to hold a series of meetings a few hours after his Air Force jet touched down at Heathrow Airport after the 18-hour journey.

A Wall Street source close to the RCA Corporation confirmed yesterday that the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was a leading candidate to buy the Hertz Corporation from RCA. The source, who insisted on anonymity, said that while RCA was still ''open to better offers,'' it appeared that the nation's No.1 auto rental company would be purchased by Firestone for between $700 million and $900 million in cash. Richard W. Miller, executive vice president and chief financial officer of RCA, declined to either confirm or deny reports that Firestone was the leading contender, nor would he discuss how much his company would demand for Hertz. Firestone confirmed on Friday that it was discussing the possibility of acquiring Hertz.

The only bright spot in the gloomy array of farm prices this week was the lowly hog, that most productive of meat-making machines, and highly efficient pork producers like Don Newby were once again seeing profits coming their way. Mr. Newby, using $1 million worth of advanced equipment, 450 acres of lush central Iowa corn land and the help of his son David, can house, feed and protect from disease more than 3,000 hogs in twiceyearly feeding cycles. For all other basic farm commodities - with the exception of heavily subsidized dairy products - prices are now either barely above the break-even point or are at losing levels, even for the most skillful farmers. But the hog market is different this year. The effects of reductions that began last fall in the number of animals being fattened for market are now being seen. This week, farmers' prices for feeder pigs and market-weight hogs were at least 20 percent above a year ago, while their feed costs are 25 percent lower.