What was going on when I was born?

IN 1977, ''Star Wars'' came to the nation's screens, and the Force was with it. The Force was with ''The Empire Strikes Back,'' too, in 1980. And when ''Return of the Jedi'' opens this Wednesday at 800 movie theaters across the country, completing the trilogy that has accounted for nearly $1 billion in ticket sales so far, it will almost inevitably be the movie of the summer of '83. ''We expect it to be the biggest of the three,'' said Alan Hirschfield, the chairman and chief executive since mid-1981 of the 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, ''Jedi's'' distributor. And it had better be, for the Force has not been with Fox for years. Since 1979, when Mr. Hirschfield joined Fox from a consulting job at Warner Communications, the company has been engulfed in an almost unending wave of contention and change, from infighting in the executive suite and rapid turnover to the $700 million purchase of Fox itself in 1981 by the Denver oilman Marvin Davis. Last November, Fox was cut out of a cable consortium when Columbia Pictures Industries spurned it in favor of a stronger partnership with Home Box Office and CBS. When Paramount, Warner Brothers and MCA, which owns Universal, formed their own alliance in January, Fox became one of two studios - the other is MGM/UA - that does not own a means of distributing movies by cable.

President Reagan plans to replace four of the six members of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, commission members and their aides reported today. If the President makes the nominations and they are confirmed by the Senate, all members of the civil rights monitoring agency would be Reagan appointees. The nominees under consideration include several who are opposed to affirmative action and busing, which the commission has strongly supported over the last decade. In the last two years the commission has reaffirmed its support for those techniques against discrimination in employment and school segregation, even though President Reagan has opposed them.

New York State students would be required to learn a foreign language and take more math, science and computer courses under a major change in the curriculum being considered by the state's Board of Regents. The new requirements are under review as part of the Regents' plan to emphasize stricter academic standards. ''My sense is that students in our secondary schools are ready for increased requirements,'' the state's Education Commissioner, Gordon M. Ambach, said today. ''If we have good, consistent signals from parents, employers and schools as to what is expected, students will rise to them '' The Regents, who set education policy in the state, are not likely to make a final decision on the requirements before the end of the year. They would consult local school boards and educators before adopting such a plan. Mr. Ambach said, however, that the Regents had ''indicated a strong desire to increase requirements.''

ALTHOUGH summer is nearly upon us, and the formal concert season is ending, there will be no lack of musical activity in the coming months. Hardly a day will pass, it seems, without a performance, indoors or out, of opera, symphonic or chamber music, bluegrass, jazz or pop. State, county and municipal parks will ring with the sound of music, and most performances in them will be free. The major music festivals - at Waterloo Village near Stanhope and the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel - draw the big-name performers, but there are many smaller events. Some specialize in chamber music and others offer a variety of nonmusical attractions, from ethnic food and dances to boat races and craft shows. Many of these smaller presentations are off the beaten track and provide bonuses of scenic or historic sites. At summer workshops, schools and camps for the performing arts, participants - whether beginners or advanced students - can work with prominent artists in a relaxed and informal setting. Public recitals are generally part of these programs, giving audiences a chance to hear young performers who may someday become top stars.

GAME chaos pervaded the locker room of pro basketball's world c hampions, the Los Angeles Lakers, one recent evening. With this b ackdrop, the ageless one, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, sat quietly between t he gold, metal walls of his dressing stall. He was leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, with his legs stretched out. Like ancient roots of an ancient tree, the legs seemed to reach halfway across that room. With each new day - each graceful sky hook and each new level of success - it is becoming clear that when measured by any standard, the 7-foot-2-inch Abdul-Jabbar is the best center ever to play the game.

AT the corner of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue in Queens stands a vacant seven-story building that for 69 years housed Gertz's department store. Despite plans for converting the building's 200,000 square feet of selling space into a discount mall, it has stood gated and empty since Gertz shut its doors in 1980. Another large building stands empty just a few blocks away, at one end of the 165th Street pedestrian mall. In 1978, after 30 years in Jamaica, Macy's moved out of the 3-story, 150,000-square-foot building. Alexander's considered moving in, but didn't. A developer bought the building from the New York Life Insurance Company last September, but no new tenant has moved in. Both buildings are reminders that in the shadow of the el at the end of the BMT line once lay the city's fourth largest retail center. In the late 1950's, sales at Macy's reached $13 million a year. Crowds poured into the Terminal Pants Shop on New York Boulevard when word got out that Fats Waller shopped there. On Saturday nights, the Valencia Theatre - since 1977 the home of the Tabernacle of Prayer and Center of Hope - was the hottest spot in town.

EACH May, reporters who cover the state government hold a gridiron dinner at which they put on a show that genially - if sometimes not so gently - needles public figures and institutions. Nothing that is said, or sung, at the dinner is ever reported. But last week, James F. Maloney, the Democratic state chairman, took exception, good-naturedly, to one of the songs and issued a detailed press release in rebuttal. To understand his reaction, it is enough to say that the song about the fortunes of the state Democratic party was a parody of the show tune ''The Party's Over.''

They drank wine dispensed by blood pumps from a make-believe operating room, and they danced in the shadow of a 10-foot-high painted kitten clad in a green surgical mask and gown. Gathered on a Hollywood sound stage one evening in late March, the cast and crew of ''St. Elsewhere,'' the NBC series about an urban hospital, were celebrating their first prime-time season together. Their festive mood was tinged with anxiety, however. Given the show's anemic ratings, there seemed little reason to believe that ''St. Elsewhere'' would survive. Six weeks later, the show's producers at the independent production company, MTM Enterprises, Inc., had real cause to celebrate, when NBC unexpectedly renewed ''St. Elsewhere'' for a second season. Once again, an MTM show managed to squeeze by, as so many others had, on its merits: the quality of its acting, writing and production values. Once again, a network saw in those merits the potential for a hit.

THE Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority is seeking bids to restart the garbage-to-energy plant in Bridgeport, but it may be too late for some of the nine Fairfield County towns involved in the long-stalled project. Several are so dissatisfied that they are considering creating an independent recycling center. The Bridgeport Resources Recovery System, the $53 million plant designed to process up to 1,800 tons of garbage daily, operated for about a year but never at more than 25 percent of its capacity. It shut down in November 1980 after a series of financial and mechanical problems. Now, although the financial aspects are entangled in arbitration proceedings, the Resources Recovery Authority believes the project can be salvaged with fresh ideas from private businesses. ''While C.R.R.A. is going after proposals, we're looking at any alternative that comes up,'' said Paul S. Timpanelli, Trumbull's First Selectman.

''OUR role is to calm down a situation, to buy time,'' said Capt. Robert Dormer, head of the Suffolk County Police Department hostage team. ''Police by nature are action-type people, and they want to resolve a situation as soon as possible so they can be ready to move on to the next job. ''A hostage team works just the opposite. When we're called from our other duties to a hostage situation, we have to suddenly turn ourselves around and calm down and start listening, building up an empathy with the hostage-taker, listen to his problems and be willing to take all the time necessary. It's a complete role reversal, and not everyone can do it.''

In unexpected, dramatic and sometimes chilling ways, the Yankees continued today to play winning baseball on a potentially pivotal road trip. They defeated the A's, 1-0, as Davey Lopes, the potential tying run, was dancing off third base in the ninth inning while Wayne Gross struck out against Rich (Goose) Gossage. Gossage saved the game for Shane Rawley, who went eight and two-thirds innings. But there also was a key groundball single through the opposite side of the infield by Dave Winfield, and there was a smart play by 38-year-old Graig Nettles, who was supposed to have rested today, that ended a potential Oakland rally.

The leader of the African National Congress of South Africa said tonight that a car bomb attack in Pretoria on Friday signaled ''an escalation'' and a tactical change in his organization's struggle against white minority rule. At a news conference here, however, the group's leader, Oliver Tambo, declined to claim responsibility on behalf of his organization for the attack, which killed 17 people, among them 8 blacks, and wounded 188 at a military intelligence installation close to the center of Pretoria. The attack was one of the bloodiest and most spectacular in recent years in South Africa. Speculation About Zambia Mr. Tambo, who is technically the group's acting president while its senior figure, Nelson R. Mandela, is in detention, threw little light on his decision not to take responsibility for the attack. There was speculation, denied by Mr. Tambo, that the Zambian Government, fearful of South African reprisals, had pressured him into an ambiguous statement.