What was going on when I was born?

A New Jersey judge today ordered an 18-year-old woman to live and work at a Roman Catholic home for women for at least 30 months as an alternative to imprisoning her for setting a house fire that killed her brother. The sentence reflected efforts by the judge, the prosecution, probation officials, a public defender and family members to avoid exposing the woman to the environment of a state prison. ''Jail would kill her,'' said the judge, Fred C. Galda of State Superior Court. He assigned the woman, Ann Marie O'Brien, to the custody of People of Hope, a Newark-based movement of Roman Catholic charismatics who stress religious renewal through concentrated study of the Bible.

The United States and China agreed today on preliminary steps to revive high-level military contacts that were largely suspended after the Reagan Administration took office two years ago. Defense Minister Zhang Aiping, in a meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz this morning, agreed with an American suggestion for closer military relations and with procedures that United States officials hope will lead to an early visit to China by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. A senior American official, in providing details on Mr. Shultz's meetings today, also said Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang told Mr. Shultz he would visit the United States and invited President Reagan to come to China. No dates were set for either visit.

Mozart's very first symphony has been discovered and authenticated by international experts, and will be performed in Denmark in March or April. Mozart was about 9 years old when he wrote it. The manuscript was found 40 years ago in a cellar in Odense, Denmark, but not until recently was attention paid to it. Experts say it was composed in London in 1764 or 1765.

The nation's unemployment rate fell last month for the first time in the 17 months since the start of the recession, the Labor Department reported today. The number of unemployed people fell to 11,446,000 in January, a decline of 590,000 from December, cutting the rate to 10.4 percent from 10.8 percent in December. The number of civilians with jobs remained at 99,103,000, Under a new statistical system, the 1,667,000 members of the armed services based in the United States were added to the total work force for the first time, giving an alternative rate of 10.2 percent for January. This was down from what would have been 10.7 percent in December had servicemen been included then. Including military personnel, the total number of employed people rose to 100,770,000 last month.

President Reagan today condemned the violence accompanying the strike by independent truckers and said he would not consider the strikers' demand for repeal of new taxes on gasoline and commercial trucks. ''To let a small percentage of any group of people in our country, by the Excerpts from news session, page 7. use of murder and violence of the kind that they've used, change the laws of this country would be the worst precedent that we could set,'' Mr. Reagan said at a news conference. One driver has been shot and killed. Others have been shot at, bricks have been thrown through windshields and nails strewn on highways. Today, in the fifth day of the strike, more random violence was reported around the country, including an ambush on a convoy of trucks in Illinois, in which three truck drivers suffered minor injuries, and the wounding of a trucker in Maine. A truck mechanic and a truck driver were arrested in the Illinois incident and were being held under $1 million bond, according to United Press International. In response to the violence, the National Guard was put on alert in Pennsylvania and National Guard helicopters were being used to patrol highways in North Carolina.

Vice President Bush, pressing the Soviet Union to revise its positions in the arms reduction talks here, met with the chief Soviet negotiators today and told them the United States was ''deadly serious'' about achieving weapons cuts. The meetings with the Soviet officials followed a speech by the Vice President to the United Nations Disarmament Committee. In his remarks, Mr. Bush linked progress in the discussions about intermediate-range missiles with the Soviet Union's abandoning what he said was its monopoly on the weapons and recognizing the ''legitimate security concerns'' of the United States. The Vice President talked separately for an hour at the United States Mission with Yuli A. Kvitsinsky, head of the Soviet delegation in the intermediate-range missile talks, and for another hour with Viktor P. Karpov, chief of the Soviet delegation discussing strategic arms.

Politically, the drop in the unemployment rate has strengthened President Reagan's hand for the present and evidently reinforced his resolve to preserve his basic economic strategy in the face of criticism and challenges from Congress. At his unscheduled news conference today, Mr. Reagan projected a decidedly more confident mood than he did in his State of the Union Message 10 days ago. Although firm on substance then, he made bipartisanship his keynote. Privately, aides described his budget for the fiscal year 1984 as an opening position, ''a ticket to the dance,'' because he understood he would eventually have to compromise.

Paraguay will hold a presidential election Sunday and there is little doubt that Gen. Alfredo Stroessner will be re-elected. General Stroessner, 70 years old, has ruled this tropical country in the heart of South America for 29 years, making him the longest ruling leader in the hemisphere and the last of an old-line generation of right-wing Latin dictators who run their countries like fiefdoms. Even the two opposition candidates -who are accused by dissidents of being pawns to legitimize the election - concur with Government officials in predicting that General Stroessner will win another five-year term, with 85 to 90 percent of the vote. He will partly achieve that, according to opposition and human rights leaders, because of fear of the Government, censorship of the press and a powerful political party machine that controls the voting.

Nicaraguan troops killed 73 rightist guerrillas last weekend in two clashes near the Honduran border in Miskito Indian territory, the Government said today. The heaviest fighting occurred Saturday in Bismuna, a Nicaraguan border town where 58 rightists were killed, the Defense Ministry said.

One of the cruelest aspects of the forced exodus of Ghanaians from Nigeria is that the governments of West Africa have done relatively little to help the poor, anxious, hungry and sick people making the 300-mile trip from Lagos to Accra, the Ghanaian capital. For example, at the small Roman Catholic mission hospital in this bush town just inside the Ghanaian border, 20 miles northwest of Lome, the Togolese capital, 62 victims of a highway accident were brought here three days ago. They were injured when a huge trailer truck carrying about 100 returnees toward Accra fell into a ditch. It was estimated that a dozen of them were killed. There was not enough food, water, medicine or beds here for the injured.

The migration of Ghanaians expelled from Nigeria along with other foreigners 18 days ago seemed to be easing today, leaving questions about the real scope of the exodus. Thousands of Ghanaians, who have trekked by bus and car and ship from Nigeria across two countries, were reported, however, to be stranded at the Aflao border crossing awaiting transportation. The Government has commandeered virtually every vehicle it can, so long lines form in Accra of people awaiting buses. The Ghanaians at Aflao are said by relief officials to be hungry, thirsty and near-destitute. The officials added that although the migration seems to be easing, the danger is that the last to arrive will also be the weakest and most prone to disease.

The Reagan Administration today proposed a $9.2 billion program of foreign military assistance, about $400 million more than this year. In announcing the proposal, State Department officials noted that about half the money for the 1984 fiscal year, which will begin Oct. 1, is scheduled to go to the Middle East. Nations that give the United States access to bases -such as Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal and the Philippines - are to receive about 20 percent of the total. The overall proposal includes a sharp increase in the proportion of purchase grants that do not have to be repaid.