What was going on when I was born?

United States warships bombarded Syrian- controlled areas in the hills above Beirut today after two United States F-14 warplanes were fired on by Syrian antiaircraft batteries. An American military spokesman said the F-14's, flying from the aircraft carrier Independence, were on a ''tactical air reconnaissance mission.'' In Damascus, a Syrian spokesman confirmed that Syrian antiaircraft units had fired on the American planes. He called the subsequent American naval bombardment ''part of the framework of the continuous acts of aggression committed by the American forces against our forces in Lebanon.'' He offered no information on casualties.

In one of the most improbable games of the National Football League season, the Los Angeles Rams ended the playoff hopes of the New Orleans Saints today by winning, 26-24, on a 42-yard field goal with two seconds left to play. The victory gave the Rams a 9-7 record and put them into the playoffs for the first time since 1980. The Saints could have made the playoffs as a wild-card team with a victory. But when and where the Rams play their next game will not be determined until after the Dallas Cowboys, who have earned a wild-card spot, play the San Francisco 49ers Monday night in San Francisco. If the 49ers win, the Rams will be the other National Conference wild-card team and will play the Cowboys Dec. 26 in Dallas. If the Cowboys win, the Rams will be the N.F.C. West champions, and the 49ers will play the Cowboys in Dallas in the wild-card game.

An investor group led by Castle & Cooke Inc., the big West Coast food concern that is trying to buy the Dr Pepper Company, said yesterday that it has extended the deadline on its takeover bid until the end of the month. The group, the DPCC Acquisition Corporation, also disclosed that it has begun negotiations with Lazard Fr eres, the investment firm that is Dr Pepper's financial adviser, to gain access to financial and other information about the soft-drink company. The group, which has offered about $581 million, or roughly $24 a share, for the soft-drink company, could lose $550 million in bank financing for the deal if anything negative about Dr Pepper is uncovered in a review to be conducted by the banks. Loans Subject to Cancellation According to filings by the banks with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the financing for Castle & Cooke is in the form of ''letters of interest'' from the banks, and thus is subject to cancellation.

Exerpts from report, page B8. Members of Governor Cuomo's commission on the Shoreham nuclear power plant agree that it was a mistake to build the reactor, but after six months of hearings and deliberations, there appears to be agreement on very little else. The commission's 13 members now disagree even on what their chairman, Dr. John H. Marburger 3d, says they agreed to when they drafted their report to Mr. Cuomo - such things as whether the Long Island Lighting Company, the owner of the reactor, is prepared to run it and whether it would pay to open the plant. The 300-page report, formally released last Wednesday, provided no recommendations to the Governor. It gave no final assessment of the major issue: whether the nearly completed reactor should be abandoned or put into service.

The United States, pressing for reduced barriers to stimulate the $350 billion- a-year international trade in services, has laid out for the first time what it hopes to get from any new round of multilateral negotiations. One of the key objectives that emerges from a year-long, 400-page study by the Reagan Administration is international acceptance of a ''fairness'' doctrine in which foreign-supplied services would be accorded the same regulatory treatment as domestically supplied services. The study, prepared by the office of the United States Trade Representative, Bill Brock, will be submitted Monday to the 89-nation Council of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Geneva to begin a new phase in Washington's longstanding efforts to promote a so-called services round of negotiations. These talks would be aimed at curbing national restrictions in banking, insurance, construction, engineering, consulting, data processing, tourism, shipping and other activities that are now lumped together in trade parlance under the common heading of services.

HE would rise early in the 6-bedroom, $1 million Tudor house he bought recently in Potomac, Md., a suburb of Washington, put on a sweat suit and go out and do about five miles of road work, pattering through the quiet, leafy streets. ''I'd get up about 6 or 7 in the morning, which is early when you don't have to be at the office until noon, if you want to go into the office at all,'' said Ray Leonard. ''But I did it, the road work, the conditioning exercises at home, with real intensity - with the eye of the tiger,'' he said. ''My wife said that when she saw that look a few months ago she knew I would go back into the ring.'' Leonard sat the other day behind a desk in the office that he occupies in the suite of his lawyer and adviser, Michael G. Trainer. The law offices are situated on the second floor of a two-story brick building on Bonifant Street in downtown Silver Spring, Md.

After a year of robust recovery, with higher growth and lower inflation than had been forecast by most experts, many leading economists predict that 1984 will be a year of continuing, but somewhat slower, economic expansion. Several prominent economists said that the recovery will sustain its momentum into the first half of next year. Most agreed that the expansion will slow near the middle of 1984, as continuing high interest rates reduce the growth of consumer and corporate spending. But on balance, the economists said that the nation is in for another year of economic well being. Predictions ''can be made with relative confidence because we are in a recovery, we will stay in a recovery and there is no need to call a turning point next year,'' said John O. Wilson, chief economist for the Bank of America.

Japan's long-governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered one of its worst postwar election setbacks today, losing its majority in Parliament's powerful House of Representatives. The ruling conservative party is now forced to seek support from independent conservatives to retain control of the lower house, which elects the Prime Minister and originates all significant legislation. The party has needed that sort of help only twice since 1955, when it began to govern Japan without interruption. Unofficial results this afternoon showed the Liberal Democrats capturing 250 of the 511 contested seats, or six short of a majority. This compared with the 286 seats that they held in the last House of Representatives.

The Economy United States trade negotiators will seek ''fairness'' for exports of services in any new round of multilateral talks. Such service trade, which includes banking, insurance, data processing and tourism, amounts to $350 billion a year. (Page D1.)

A New York City man carrying a rifle invaded a dormitory at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., late Saturday night and, after briefly holding seven students captive, shot and killed two of them, the authorities said. The gunman, described as a rejected suitor of one of the two slain women, then fled in a car, pursued by campus and Ithaca city police officers. After a two-mile chase, the police halted his car, but the assailant shot and critically wounded himself in the head before the officers could seize him, the police said. The murders were the first in the 118- year history of Cornell and, coming amid the tensions of final-exam week, they left the university's 17,000 students in a state of shock. Many were incredulous that such crimes could occur in the serenity of the wooded, ivy- draped, 740-acre hillside campus overlooking the Finger Lakes city of Ithaca.

The church organist played on a portable electric keyboard balanced on his lap. The parishioners sat on cold metal chairs and listened as the pastor delivered his sermon from beneath a basketball hoop. Yesterday's service in a Manhattan gymnasium was a far cry from what the members of Grace United Methodist Church were accustomed to. But 10 days ago, a five-alarm fire destroyed the 89-year-old Upper West Side building that housed two congregations - one English- speaking and the other Spanish-speaking.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party suffered one of its worst postwar election setbacks, losing its majority in Parliament's powerful House of Representatives. Japan's ruling conservative party must now seek support from independent conservatives to retain control of the 511-member lower house, which elects the country's Prime Minister and originates all significant legislation. The results are seen as a serious blow for Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. (Page A1, Column 6.) U.S. warships off Beirut bombarded Syrian-controlled areas in the hills above the city after two American F-14 fighter jets were shot at by Syrian antiaircraft gunners. (A1:3.)