What was going on when I was born?

The Commerce Department imposed trade sanctions today, as expected, against John Brown P.L.C., a British engineering company and the fourth European concern to be penalized for supplying equipment to the Soviet Union for the Siberian gas pipeline. Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige announced the sanctions - barring United States exports of oil and gas technology to John Brown - a few hours after a Russian freighter left Glasgow with six turbines made John Brown and using rotors supplied by the General Electric Company of the United States. President Reagan has banned exports of oil and gas equipment to the Soviet Union by American concerns, their subsidiaries and licensees as a reaction to the continuation of martial law in Poland. Mr. Baldrige said the Government had no evidence that the Polish situation had eased, but he also said that ''The effect of the sanctions has not been felt yet.''

The village trustees here have voted a new ordinance that sets rules for joggers and punishes violators with fines of up to $250 and with jail terms of up to 90 days. The ordinance requires joggers along roadways to run single file, to keep to the shoulder of the road, to run against traffic and, at night, to wear both front and back reflector gear. ''This type of law is far from common - it's extraordinary,'' said Gloria Averbuch of the New York Road Runners Club, which has more than 21,000 members in the New York metropolitan area. ''It treats joggers like criminals.''

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives today gave President Reagan a setback by voting to override his veto of a $14.1 billion supplemental spending bill. The vote of 301 to 117, more than the two-thirds needed, represented the first major breakdown of Republican unity on fiscal votes in the 97th Congress. Eighty-one Republicans voted with 220 Democrats to override the veto, while only 13 Democrats voted with 104 Republicans to sustain it. Mr. Reagan, questioned about the House action as he got off a plane in Ogden, Utah, on a flight from Kansas on a two-day political swing, shouted: ''The big spenders won!'' He added that he hoped his views would prevail when the Senate votes on overriding the veto on Friday.

A private corporation with only seven permanent employees launched a spacecraft made out of surplus rocket parts from a cattle ranch here today, ushering in what its promoters believe will be a new era of commercial exploitation of space technology. The gleaming white craft, carrying a mock payload of 40 gallons of water, lifted off dramatically with a roar and a puff of white smoke at 10:17 A.M. It sketched a high parabola over the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico and splashed down 321 miles from this barren island 10 1/2 minutes later. The successful test flight of the 36-foot rocket, symbolically named Conestoga 1 after the covered wagons used by American pioneers, was a pivotal event for its owner, Space Services Inc. of America. The Houston-based concern had persuaded 57 investors to chip in $6 million on the argument that the time had come for private enterprise to get a piece of the action in space, which has long been dominated by governments. Plan to Launch Satellite The company's chairman, David Hannah Jr., a Texas real estate developer and space enthusiast, said the company was now prepared to push ahead with plans for the first privately launched satellite in 1984. Space Services hopes to sell ''low-cost, market-oriented'' space services that are tailored specifically to meet the needs of oil companies and other potential customers needing satellite tracking and communication.

''Yes, recovery has been sighted.'' - President Reagan. (D17:1.)

New York City and union leaders representing its 180,000 nonuniformed employees reached a tentative agreement last night on a new contract that includes wage increases of about 15 percent over two years. The settlement, subject to ratification by the unions, provides for an increase of 8 percent, delayed two months into the first year of the contract, and 7 percent, effective at the start of the second year. The agreement provides for a minimum increase in each year of at least $900 for lower-paid employees. The city said that if it reached a similar agreement with its uniformed workers, the total cost would be about $1.6 billion. Bargaining with the Uniformed Forces Coalition is scheduled to resume at 11 A.M. today at the Vista International Hotel in lower Manhattan. That coalition, representing 35,000 police officers, correction officers and firefighters, is seeking ''hazardous duty'' pay as well as salary increases.

SOME folks would have us believe that American popular music before rock-and-roll was a Garden of Eden - a paradise where melody reigned supreme, songs were built to last a lifetime and singers never had to shout. According to them, a snake called rock-and-roll invaded the garden in the mid-1950's and seduced Adam and Eve (the country's record companies and radio stations) by offering them the cheap sensations of raucous rock hits and big bucks. This turn of events effectively cast the true music lovers out of the garden, and they have been wailing and gnashing their teeth ever since. But they fervently believe that one day soon melody will again reign supreme and that the serpent rock will be banished to the record-store remainder bins.

A strike halted United Parcel Service pickups and deliveries yesterday in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island, sending major department stores in the area scurrying to find alternatives. Late yesterday, the parcel service got a temporary restraining order in Federal District Court in Brooklyn against the strike, which was called by Local 804 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union acknowledges that the walkout violates a nostrike clause in its contract, but it was not clear last night whether the union would comply with the court order. The strike, by 4,800 parcel service drivers, sorters and handlers, came at the start of the busy fall retail season. It followed a dispute over a U.P.S. employee who had taken time off, saying he had a bad back, but had refused to be examined by a company physician.

American businesses, faced with a sluggish economy and high interest rates, have continued to cut their plans for expansion and modernization, the Commerce Department reported today. The continued reduction in planned business investment, which is crucial to the hopes for a long-term economic recovery, has continued all through 1982, despite the huge ''supply-side'' tax cut that the Reagan Administration won for business last year. The President pinned his promises for a strong economic recovery on a resulting increase in capital investment. Now Administration officials are conceding that the principal hope for recovery rests with consumers.

No part of the 1981 tax act drew more fire than the provision allowing companies to sell unused tax benefits to other companies, a practice known as safe-harbor leasing. Because of this measure, some major companies, such as General Electric, with millions of dollars of income were able to pay little or no American taxes in 1982. And others, such as Occidental Petroleum, which had losses in the United States but were profitable worldwide, were able to sell tax benefits they might not have been able to use. Both practices elicited widespread outrage. The 1982 tax law generally rescinds safe-harbor leasing beginning in 1984, and curtails it in the interim. Tax experts say this will take care of cases like G.E.'s. But many tax specialists are concerned that killing off safe-harbor leasing raises problems that the leasing measure was meant to solve. ''Safe-harbor leasing was a way for less creditworthy companies to capture tax benefits to help finance their investment,'' said Emil M. Sunley, an economist with the accounting firm of Deloitte Haskins & Sells and formerly a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Carter. ''Now the question is where these companies will go once safe-harbor leasing is repealed.''

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that the United States would support a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon only if it was freely entered into by the Lebanese Government and not dictated by Israeli military pressure. Testifying on the Middle East before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Shultz also expressed confidence that President Reagan's peace proposal was not ''dead by any means'' despite Israeli rejection. (Israel said its planes had destroyed four Syrian launching vehicles for antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon, and an official said Israel was determined to keep the missiles out of Lebanon. Officials in Damascus confirmed that three launching vehicles had been lost. Page A9.)

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged in Federal District Court in Manhattan yesterday that Saxon Industries, which is in bankruptcy proceedings, and three of its executives had conspired to falsify the company's books. The S.E.C. said in its complaint that a scheme that lasted from 1968 to 1981 padded the company's books with about $75 million in nonexistent inventory. As a result, the complaint said, misleading documentation was filed with the commission and ''false and misleading information was given to the public.''