What was going on when I was born?

''You can't solve unemployment without solving the things that caused it - the out-of-control government spending, the skyrocketing inflation and interest rates that led to unemployment in the first place.'' - President Reagan. (B14:1.)

The International Harvester Company announced today that all of its nearly 200 lenders had approved the latest modification to its financial rescue plan. The new plan, which eases the repayment burden of Harvester's $4.2 billion in debt, grants the ailing manufacturer of farm equipment and trucks another reprieve from bankruptcy. But analysts noted that some of its provisions hinged on concessions from Harvester's suppliers and dealers, raising the possibility of further revisions if the concessions do not materialize.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Drucker is a writer and editor in the design field. BY STEVEN DRUCKER COLE PORTER once told the designer Billy Baldwin that he didn't want his television set hidden any more than he wanted his piano slipcovered. The Porter analogy is still tart if no longer apt: These days a big part of a designer's job is coming to esthetic grips with television sets, stereo components and home computers. Shrines are erected and armoires are gutted to force electronic gear into neat packages, and true aficionados are willing to pay high prices to put the best face on their equipment. Exactly which direction the effort takes, however, depends on the design point of view at work: architect, interior designer or engineer.

International Polish shipyard workers who struck for two days in Gdansk over the outlawing of the independent trade union Solidarity returned to work after the martial-law authorities drafted them into military service. But new protests erupted in southern Poland, where 3,000 workers marched out of a steel plant outside Cracow. Street clashes were reported in Wroclaw in the southwest. (Page A1, Column 4.) The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Alva Myrdal of Sweden and Alfonso Garcia Robles of Mexico for their efforts to promote disarmament. Mrs. Myrdal's husband is Gunnar Myrdal, who shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Mr. Garcia Robles is a 71-year-old career diplomat. (A10:3-6.)

Unemployment and other aspects of the economy are the greatest concerns of Connecticut voters, according to a statewide poll by The New York Times, and Gov. William A. O'Neill, who has made economic development the main theme of his campaign for re-election, is drawing wide support from people concerned about those issues. Mr. O'Neill, a Democrat, led his Republican opponent, Lewis B. Rome, by 52 percent to 32 percent among registered voters, according to the poll. When the voters were asked to name the most important issue, 41 percent, by far the largest group, named unemployment, and among those who did so, Mr. O'Neill led Mr. Rome by 57 percent to 30 percent. The poll was taken four weeks before the election, and campaign developments and voter turnout could close the gap between Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Rome. The Connecticut survey was based on telephone interviews conducted from Oct. 3 through Oct. 8 with 1,587 adults throughout the state. Of the total, 1,132 said they were registered voters.

Because of a computer error at The Associated Press, the Mutual Funds table in Business Day yesterday showed net changes incorrectly. They reflected the differences in price from Friday's quotations, rather than Monday's.

President Reagan said tonight that even though unemployment remained high his economic policies were effectively attacking its root causes. He said the nation could slowly work its way back to prosperity if it had ''the courage to see it through.'' In a nationally televised address from the White House, he sounded many of the main themes he has been using recently as campaigning for mid-year Congressional elections has heated up. But tonight he used more personal and nonpartisan terms. More than in the past, he acknowledged that unemployment was a major problem confronting the nation. But his theme was that unemployment would be solved if the nation would stay the course with his economic program.

He arrived from Colombia alone -a stranger to this country. He spoke no English and knew no one to call. He carried one small suitcase, but a load of expectation, and as he began his journey, Marcos Martinez, at the age of 27, had only one idea in mind: to make a fortune. Wee Young Sook came from South Korea. She said she imagined dollar bills blowing off the subway tracks, a large house and plenty to eat. What she hoped for was to return to her homeland one day with enough money to do as she pleased. Arif A. Khawaja, who is from Pakistan, wanted only a better life for his children. They are three newcomers to this country - all initially unable to speak the language, all less interested in the intangibles of freedom than in the potential for economic gain. One is young. One is now disabled. One has a small business and a large family. They come from three different continents and have never met, but have walked the same streets of Queens -random faces in what is the city's most ethnically diverse neighborhood, Elmhurst.

President Reagan asserted that his economic policies are effectively attacking the ''root causes'' of unemployment. In a televised address, he said the problem would eventually be solved if the nation stayed with his program. (Page A1.) Mr. Reagan went further than ever before in acknowledging that unemployment, rather than inflation, is his Administration's main problem. (A1.) Twenty-three oil companies bid $2.1 billion for drilling rights in the Beaufort Sea off northern Alaska despite the slump in the world oil market. U.S. officials were delighted, contending that the bids vindicated their controversial offshore leasing program. (A1.)

Banks around the country have begun to lower interest rates on consumer loans, and in New York it appeared yesterday that banks were trying to undercut one another on interest rates for automobile financing. The decline in consumer lending rates is part of the overall reduction in interest rates that began last August. That reduction accelerated yesterday as all the nation's major banks reduced their prime lending rates by one percentage point, to 12 percent. They followed the lead set Tuesday by the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company and three other large banks.

The stock market rose sharply yesterday on near-record volume with the Dow Jones industrial average closing at its highest level in almost 18 months. The Dow, which was up 23 points at 2:30, closed ahead 11.40 points, to 1,015.08, its highest since April 28, 1981, when it finished at 1,016.93. The late selling pressure yesterday was attributed to profit taking. Volume rose to 139.8 million shares, the second highest ever, from 126.3 million shares on Tuesday. The record was set last Thursday when 147.1 million shares were traded.

DURHAM, N.H. ''THE stress on American families now is of a different order than ever before,'' said Dr. M. Harvey Brenner, an economist and medical sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. ''Their psychic pain is worse than that of families in the Depression or in the time of the Industrial Revolution, and yet, paradoxically, the country's level of material wealth is higher than ever.'' Dr. Brenner was examining the effects of unemployment and recession on health at the first National Conference on Social Stress Research, a gathering of 140 psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists and public-health investigators, at the University of New Hampshire. Although the conference had been planned months before last week's announcement that national unemployment had reached a 40-year high of 10.1 percent, many of the researchers' studies dealt with the toll of joblessness and economic calamity.