What was going on when I was born?

Short- and long-term interest rates rose yesterday, with most of the increases coming in the afternoon after the rate for overnight bank loans in the Federal funds market jumped a quarter point, to 9 3/4 percent. By late in the day, rates for many short-term issues had risen a tenth of a percentage point, with outstanding six-month Treasury bills bid at 9.6 percent, up from 9.5 percent. Yields also rose for bank certificates of deposit, with issues due in four months and longer yielding over 10 percent in the secondary market. 10 1/2 Percent Since February The higher yields for certificates, which are a major source of bank funds, plus the increase in the rate for overnight bank loans in the Federal funds market, led many analysts to conclude that the prime rate might soon be raised above the 10 1/2 percent level that has prevailed since late February.

International Two top officials have urged an easing of curbs on the export of oil and gas equipment to Moscow, according to Administration officials. The move, by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, seemed to be another step in the two nations' relaxation of economic differences. (Page A1.) A shrewd assessment was at the basis of Moscow's decision to buy nine million tons of U.S. grain by 1988, according to Western experts in Moscow. They said the move, while a political gesture to Washington, will at the same time meet the need to rebuild depleted grain reserves and strengthen livestock herds. (D1.)

IT is a question that every school district has to confront now and again, and a problem that New York City is never without: What should be done with unsuccessful schools? Or, as Anthony J. Alvarado, the city's Chancellor of Schools puts it: How do you fix schools that ''don't work?'' Even before he became Chancellor, Mr. Alvarado endorsed the direct approach. ''Schools that don't perform year after year should be closed down,'' he declared when he was seeking the post. After less than two months on the job, the new Chancellor made good on his rhetoric and came up with a plan. One city high school would close and three would be reorganized, all to begin when school opened in the fall.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige have recommended relaxation of controls on the export of oil and gas equipment to the Soviet Union, Administration officials said today. The recommendation appeared to be another step in the recent easing of economic differences between the two countries. Last Thursday, a new long-term grain agreement was announced under which the Soviet Union is to increase its minimum annual purchases of American grain by 50 percent for the next five years. The action by the two Cabinet officers was taken in a joint options paper submitted to President Reagan at the end of last week, the officials said. Despite the opposition of Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, it was believed that Mr. Reagan would accept the Shultz-Baldrige recommendation, at least in part.

An article yesterday on the experimental hormone therapy that may be used for former Senator Jacob K. Javits incorrectly described the usual course of the hormone in the body. Thyrotropin-releasing hormone is produced in the hypothalamus gland and stimulates the pituitary gland to release a second hormone, which stimulates the thyroid gland.

''STAND by to launch,'' cracks a voice over the intercom. Suddenly an explosion rocks the floor of the turboprop, a P-3, cruising high over the Pacific. ''Away,'' drones the voice above the roar of the engines. A crew member has just fired a yard- long tube filled with delicate electronic gear out the belly of the aircraft. It's the 17th shot of the day. A black- powder charge makes sure the tube breaks through turbulence around the body of the plane. In a minute it will hit the Pacific and start to transmit the temperature, first at the surface and then gradually down to a depth of 1,500 feet as a thin wire drops a weighted sensor into the deep.The signal from the electronic buoy is continuously analyzed by computers on board the aircraft. The flying laboratory is on a week-long search of a warm Pacific current known as El Nino, an allusion in Spanish to the Christ child, because it often flows around Christmas. Every 8 to 10 years the flow becomes unusually intense. Without any warning, however, the present one has turned out to be the strongest El Ninos and perhaps one of the most powerful of all weather disturbances in history.

Because of a technical error, an article about the golfer Jack Newton in some copies of Sports Pages on Friday omitted several lines that affected the meaning. It is reprinted today on page B7.

A record number of food peddlers are thronging the midtown streets of Manhattan this summer, and some are storing and preparing food in dirty and vermin-infested depots, City Health Department records and visits to the locations show. Violations uncovered recently at West Side tenement warehouses included food areas littered with mouse droppings and debris, exposed perishable food, ice blocks sitting on dirty sidewalks, and no sinks, hot water or soap in the bathrooms. The Health Department says it is hard to say actually how many vendors obey sanitary regulations. Though at any one time most appear to be in compliance, violations remain common, according to officials. Shish Kebab to Bonbons Some of the vendors accuse inspectors of harassment and say there is no alternative to keeping their carts and supplies in the aged warehouses.

A meeting between President Reagan's envoy to Central America and a Salvadoran rebel leader was described by Administration officials today as a ''positive'' step. But they said it was only a ''preliminary'' move toward talks between the Salvadoran Government and the rebels. The envoy, Richard B. Stone, met in Bogota, Colombia, on Sunday with Ruben Zamora, a director of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, the political arm of the five guerrilla groups. It was the first meeting between Mr. Stone and a guerrilla leader since the envoy began his mission in June.

The New York Telephone Company yesterday asked for a $775 million rate increase that would mean an average rise of 6.6 percent in residential telephone costs in the state. In addition to the requested rate increase, which would take effect next July if granted by the State Public Service Commission, the company proposed several changes in telephone service, including a reduced-rate telephone service called Life Line for low- income customers. For the seventh year since 1974, the company also requested that it be allowed to raise the cost of a pay phone call, this time to 30 cents from 10 cents. The rate increases would be in addition to a recent $2-a-month increase for residential phone lines that was approved by the Federal Communications Commission last Wednesday and will take effect in January.

RESEARCH sleuths have a new prime suspect in the case of the Piltdown Man, the most celebrated hoax in the history of science. He is none other than the creator of that master detective, Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the first half of the 20th century, the bogus fossils, crudely fabricated in some respects, bamboozled two generations of anthropologists. That is the chief reason for the case's continuing fascination. Such gullibility is supposed to be obviated by the logic, objectivity and rigor of peer-reviewed science. Self-appointed science detectives have accumulated a bevy of suspects in the Piltdown case over recent decades, including the amateur geologist who uncovered the skull in the first place and a Jesuit priest.

Less than three years ago, Lee A. Iacocca, the chairman of the Chrysler Corporation, was under heavy pressure from the Federal Government to find a merger partner. The problem, he complained at the time, was that ''nobody wants to dance.'' With the company's dramatic return to financial health, Mr. Iacocca suddenly has a long line of candidates who want him to save them a waltz. Carl Hahn, the chairman of Volkswagen, has been meeting with Mr. Iacocca to discuss what Mr. Hahn described as ''possible cooperation in North America and elsewhere.''