What was going on when I was born?

The nation's unemployment rate remained unchanged in June, holding at 9.5 percent of the labor force, the highest level in 40 years. Despite the steadiness in the rate, the labor market in June appeared somewhat weaker than in May, Dr. Janet Norwood, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress today. ''Unemployment rose among adult men and factory employment declined after seasonal adjustment,'' Dr. Norwood said. She was referring to the bureau's adjustment of the statistics to eliminate the effects of seasonal changes in the economy and to make the overall trend clearer.

The $21 billion tax bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee today reflects a growing desire expressed by members of Congress to crack down on tax evasion and move toward a simpler income tax with markedly lower tax rates from top to bottom. The bill was approved shortly before 2 A.M. by a party-line vote of 11 Republicans to 9 Democrats. The panel's chairman, Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, said later that floor action in the Senate later this month would show there was less Democratic opposition to the bill than the nine Democratic ''no'' votes appeared to suggest. ''I don't think the vote is indicative of a lack of bipartisan support,'' Senator Dole said at a midday news conference.

A listing of jazz festival events in Weekend yesterday gave an incorrect time for a concert tomorrow at the South Street Seaport with Daniel Ponce and New York Now-Afro-Cuban Percussion Ensemble, Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society and the Archie Shepp Quintet. It is 5:30 P.M. to 9:30. There is no 9:30 show.

A photograph accompanying an article on Florida banking in Business Day last Saturday carried an erroneous caption. It showed Robert Marlin, a developer who is part of a group investing in the Southeast Banking Corporation.

SHEMALI, Lebanon, July 1 - In the densely populated Palestinian refugee camps of southern Lebanon, the end of the fighting has not meant the end of the war. Since the guns fell silent in this region more than two weeks ago, the Israeli Army has systematically destroyed many of the Palestinians' houses that survived the battles, increasing the number of homeless families, many of them with children. Over the years the Palestinian guerrillas had adopted the practice of integrating military installations in the camps' civilian settlements. Israeli army demolition teams have been blowing up what they say are underground ''bunkers'' - the Palestinians call them ''shelters''- and that has meant taking the houses above too. The combination of combat and subsequent demolition has left many of the children and their mothers to pick through the broken and crushed slabs and chunks of concrete that cover their possessions.

The Reagan Administration has begun what could be the most extensive transfer of public property and resources to private control in recent American history. Under Administration policies, particularly those of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, millions of acres of Federal land and billions of dollars worth of minerals, energy sources, timber and other resources are to be transferred at a pace unmatched since the days of the frontier. The first 307 parcels of Federal land scheduled to be sold were announced today. This movemment of public property to private interests is a central goal of the Reagan Government. It is staunchly supported by its officials, from the President and Interior Secretary James G. Watt on down, not only as a means of strengthening the economy and national security, but also as an article of the faith that resources are put to the most efficient and productive use by the private market.

The Supreme Court ruled today, 8 to 0, that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People cannot constitutionally be held liable for losses incurred by white merchants in a seven-year boycott by black residents of Claiborne County, Miss. On the last day of its 1981-82 term, the Court handed a complete victory to the N.A.A.C.P. and 91 individual participants in the boycott. The decision was a significant reaffirmation of the constitutional right to conduct a boycott to seek political changes. Boycotts were a widely used tool of civil rights organizations, and the liability issue has shadowed such efforts for nearly a decade.

A senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization said today that three weeks of negotiations between the P.L.O., the Lebanese Government and Philip C. Habib, the American envoy, had made ''no progress'' in finding a peaceful settlement for the Lebanese crisis. Dr. George Habash, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a founder of the P.L.O., said in an interview that the guerrillas are ready for a battle in Beirut, partly because they feel that if they could hold the Israelis off long enough they would be in an even better negotiating position than they are now. ''We are ready to negotiate,'' said Dr. Habash, in the interview in an underground bunker at the Popular Front's heavily guarded west Beirut headquarters. ''But last night the P.L.O.'s Executive Committee met and went over the Lebanese terms and not one of us was willing to accept them. There has been no progress.''

Because of an editing error, an article in Metropolitan Report Thursday about a preliminary injunction barring the Secretary of Education from distributing $2.8 billion in Federal money for poor children incorrectly reported how that figure was reached. The money was appropriated by Congress this year.

British journalists returning from the Falkland Islands, no longer constrained by censorship, have been writing critical accounts of apparently inadequate British intelligence and military bungling there. The news stories, unfolding each day for the past week, provide a background for the forthcoming parliamentary inquiry into the South Atlantic war. Many of them recall the reporting of the war in Vietnam. Many reporters and editors believe that it was the Vietnam experience that influenced the British Ministry of Defense in its handling of the press during the Falkland fighting. John Nicholson, a correspondent for Independent Television News, said ''it was a question of 'Look what you people did in Vietnam, turning a nation against the war.' ''

The Argentine Army announced today that 201 soldiers who fought on the Falkland Islands were dead or missing. The army tally brings the total announced Argentine dead and missing to 577.

The Soviet Army and Air Force in Afghanistan are methodically turning that country into a forward operational base for possible military moves in southwest Asia, according to an Afghan rebel leader. Hassan Gailani of the National Islamic Front, one of the largest of the Afghan resistance movements, cited two examples of this process. One is the major Soviet air base under construction at Shindand in western Afghanistan. The other is an Afghan-Soviet border readjustment at the head of the Afghan corridor that leads to the frontier with China.