What was going on when I was born?

The bonds that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to issue to help pay for the rebuilding of the subway system received an investment-grade rating yesterday from one of the two major bond rating agencies. Richard Ravitch, chairman of the M.T.A., hailed the development as a crucial step in the M.T.A.'s $5.8 billion capital improvement program. ''It's great news,'' Mr. Ravitch said. ''Our capital program is now a reality. It means we can sell bonds, and people will lend us money.''

The Reagan Administration today sent Congress an urban policy report that said the states and municipalities themselves were better able than the Federal Government to restore the vitality of cities. The report, signed by Samuel R. Pierce Jr., the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is a revision of a draft report roundly condemned by mayors and then disavowed by President Reagan last month. Much of the language that the mayors objected to was removed or changed: definitions for Federal involvement, for example, that would have ruled out such current Federal programs as general revenue sharing. But the final report asserted, nevertheless, that much of the Federal aid of the last two decades had contributed heavily to the decline of the cities.

When the plane dropped out of the sky, Evelyn Pourchiau was outside her neatly kept brick ranch house with her grandchildren, 9-year-old Kerry and Paul, 5 1/2. They were washing the dog. ''I saw the belly of it,'' said Mrs. Pourchiau, ''and it was spitting and popping like it couldn't get the motor running. There was an explosion and I saw nothing but a big ball of fire and smoke. I looked across the street and my neighbor was rolling out. All her clothes were on fire. Her little girl didn't make it. She's under the carport.''

Farmers tend to look at the world differently from the people they feed. Even in a field full of promise, some will talk of nothing but hard luck. A truckload of healthy sweet corn on its way to market - a sign of prosperity to some - usually reminds a vegetable grower of low prices, high interest rates and the changing fortunes of life between harvests. Ray Samulis has become accustomed to the farmer's lament. He hears it season after season traveling the circuit here in his job as a Burlington County agricultural agent in South Jersey. Farmers, of course, have been complaining about their lot since the days of the horse-drawn plow. ''If every farmer who ever said he was going to quit, quit,'' Mr. Samulis said, ''there wouldn't be any left in this country.''

A Pan American World Airways jet crashed in a residential area just after taking off from New Orleans yesterday afternoon, killing all 145 on board. At least four people on the ground were killed. It was the second-worst airline disaster in United States history. The crash of the Boeing 727 devastated an area of several blocks in Kenner, a suburb less than a mile east of the takeoff runway at New Orleans International Airport. Numerous houses were set ablaze.

A new mood of optimism spread through the nation's financial markets yesterday. Interest rates for Government securities fell sharply after the Federal Reserve Board announced an unexpectedly large decline of $3.7 billion in the nation's basic money supply.

Syria said today that ''under the present circumstances there is no possibility of moving the Palestinian fighters from Beirut to Syria.'' The statement was made by a Government spokesman in response to reports that American and Lebanese negotiators were discussing a plan to transfer to Syria the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 guerrillas besieged in Beirut by the Israelis. The statement left open the question of whether Palestinian leaders might be admitted, and it was not clear whether the announcement not to provide sanctuary for the guerrillas was intended to be Syria's final official stand. Syria has indicated that it has not yet been formally consulted on such a proposal.

The White House is conducting a wide-ranging review of economic policies, but President Reagan does not intend to announce any changes in the policies before the Congressional elections in November, according to Administration officials. The officials said that, for two reasons, Mr. Reagan preferred to risk the political damage of continued high unemployment and high interest rates rather than try new approaches that his advisers believe would fail. First, in the advisers' opinions, there is too little time before the election for the measures to take effect. Second, they said, resorting to such measures would make Mr. Reagan appear irresolute to voters and the financial community.

On Jan. 27, 1980, a 20-year-old Frenchwoman named Beatrice Saubin checked out of the Eastern and Oriental Hotel here and headed for the airport, en route to Singapore and Zurich. A customs officer later testified that she had been under surveillance. After her suitcase passed through the airport's X-ray machine, she was taken aside, the suitcase's lining was cut open and, hidden inside, were 22 plastic packets of light brown powder containing 534 grams of pure heroin. The heroin was said to be worth half a million dollars on the street. In June, Miss Saubin was sentenced in the high court to hang. The case has stirred a good deal of talk here and in Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur, and many Malaysians have said quietly that the sentence seems unduly harsh. In Paris, meanwhile, a deputy, Pierre Bas, is reportedly planning to take the matter up in Parliament. The Socialist Government of President Francois Mitterrand abolished capital punishment when it came to power.

Recent fighting in the two-year-old Salvadoran civil war does not appear to be going well for the Salvadoran Government. But the guerrillas, who seem stronger now than they were 18 months ago when they attempted a nationwide offensive, do not appear to be close to a military victory. In political developments, the Salvadoran National Assembly is functioning, heatedly debating economic and social legislation. The army, historically an arbiter in Salvadoran political life, remains a strong force. It is seen as a check on the power of the civilian politicians.

The Japanese Government decided today to propose a 7.34 percent increase in the military budget for the fiscal year beginning next April 1 while calling for 5 percent cuts for most other departments because of the economic recession. The decision, reached by the Finance Ministry and the Defense Agency after months of negotiations, followed pressure from the United States for increased military spending. Japanese officials said it also reflected mounting concern in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party over Soviet arms buildups in the region.

At the end of March, the war and the elections in El Salvador were front-page news and the lead items on the nightly television news programs. A press corps that at its peak included several hundred United States journalists had assembled in the Central American country, where the United States Government had said it was drawing the line against Communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere. Now, fewer than a dozen American reporters remain in El Salvador. For all but a handful of newspapers, the conflict has been relegated to the inside pages of papers or a few lines on the evening news.