What was going on when I was born?

Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic of The New York Times for 31 years, and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence in 1947, died of pneumonia yesterday at Crestwood Hospital in Huntsville, Ala. He was 89 years old. Mr. Atkinson, who had been seriously ill since November, entered the hospital on Dec. 7. He had moved to Huntsville in 1981 from his farm in Durham, N.Y., to be near his family. Few men valued power less than he did. Yet his skill as an essayist, the scope of his erudition and the integrity of his standards made him, by common consent, the theater's most influential reviewer of his time.

Governor Cuomo will propose a $302 million increase in education aid in his budget next week, including funds for a score of programs to improve the quality of education, state officials said today. The new and expanded programs, totaling $100 million, are designed to help schools buy computer equipment, recruit and train teachers, improve libraries and discipline and reduce dropout rates and adult illiteracy. They would be paid for through a special fund containing proceeds from a sports-betting program proposed by Mr. Cuomo that is still under study. The Governor will propose a major revision in the way basic school aid is calculated. The revision would reduce aid by 2 percent to some relatively wealthy school districts, and increase it substantially in others.

A section of the United States Marine base here came under heavy rifle fire today, fighting broke out in downtown West Beirut and artillery shells exploded in the streets of East Beirut and in the nearby hills. It was one of the sharpest upsurges of violence in the Lebanese capital in months. The fighting came as Washington's special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, was meeting in Damascus with President Hafez al- Assad and other Syrian officials about ways to overcome obstacles to a plan for the disengagement of the warring factions in Lebanon. Neither Syrian nor American officials would discuss the details of the talks.

President Reagan has determined that the Soviet Union has committed ''violations or probable violations'' of some terms of several arms control agreements or obligations, a senior State Department official said today. In a briefing for reporters, the official said that despite these instances of Soviet failure to live up to agreements, ''the President has not concluded that we should give up our search for serious arms control agreements.'' The President's determination came after a months-long study that was ordered by Congress after some conservative members disclosed possible Soviet failures to live up to agreements. A Major U.S. Effort The announcement of the results of the study came as the Administration prepared a major effort to convince Soviet leaders and the public in the United States and Western Europe that it is sincere in trying to reach new accords with Moscow despite the chill in relations.

''People kept saying, 'Look at that, Christmas lights on Charlotte Street,' '' said Irma Rivera, smiling at the thought of passers-by staring at the lighted tree in her yard. ''No one believed it. They'd come back for a second look. For the South Bronx, this was a miracle.'' So, too, for Mrs. Rivera, her husband, David, and their 16-month-old daughter, Anita. They are the first family to move into one of the 90 ranch- style houses being built in the South Bronx, a neighborhood that had come to represent all that was wrong with American cities.

The United States closed out its first full year of economic recovery from the longest downturn since World War II with industrial production expanding at a moderate rate and inflation in check, figures for December showed today. The Federal Reserve Board said the output of the nation's factories rose five-tenths of 1 percent in December, capping the strongest year of industrial growth since 1976. But the gain for the month was the smallest in almost a year, indicating that the recovery was slowing to a sustainable rate of growth. For all of 1983, industrial production was up 6.5 percent from the year before. The growth was paced by strong performances for automobiles, home goods, construction materials and commercial equipment. In 1982, industrial production fell by 8.2 percent.

Malaysians relish telling foreign visitors that their country, though a relatively small power with 14 million people, has nine hereditary sultans who constitute nearly one-third of the world total of reigning royalty. For more than five months, the sultans, among them Malaysia's King Ahmad Shah, have been at the center of a bruising constitutional struggle over their powers. The struggle ended this week in a compromise that left both sides claiming victory. Under an amendment to the charter approved by the lower house of Parliament on Monday and by the upper house the next day, the King loses the right to veto new laws by withholding his assent, which had been routinely given until the constitutional dispute arose last August. But he gains new power to delay and, apparently in some circumstances, to kill future legislation.

Vampire-like attacks have been reported by 21 young women in Sumatra who said a man had bitten their necks to suck blood, the Jakarta daily Sinar Harapan said today. A local Member of Parliament told the paper that he had not believed the accounts at first but that after seeing the victims he was convinced a vampire was on the loose.

First a small flashing robot stepped on the Chinese Prime Minister's toes. Then a 7-foot Colombian boa constrictor stuck out its forked tongue at him. Then Zhao Ziyang was treated to a slide show of bugs eating fruit and given a chance to examine some dead mosquitoes in a bottle. Mr. Zhao was on the road in America, seeing unofficial pursuits and ordinary citizens after leaving the high- level talks and cocktail parties of Washington behind him.

The Organization of African Unity today abandoned attempts to open a conference of the warring factions in Chad. The immediate cause of the breakdown in talks was apparently the question of which, if any, of the 11 delegations in Addis Ababa for the meeting would be permitted to display the Chadian national flag.

A South African invasion force was reported tonight to be pulling out of southern Angola in a long column of trucks laden with captured equipment supplied by the Soviet Union to its allies in the territory. South Africa announced the withdrawal earlier this week, but Angola denied the assertion. Independent corroboration came tonight from a party of eight foreign journalists who were flown 90 miles into Angola, to the town of Evale, by the South African Air Force. The correspondents operated as a ''pool'' whose rules stipulated that they make their reports available to journalists not included in the trip.

Senior officials from Mozambique and South Africa started talks today as part of an effort, supported by the United States, to ease the hostility that has built up between Pretoria's white rulers and their black-ruled, avowedly Marxist, neighbors. The conversations in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, represented a low-key start to what United States officials say they hope will be a process of normalization. Today's talks focused on promoting tourism between the two countries. Next Monday further discussions are to be held simultaneously in Maputo and Pretoria on the far more sensitive issues of security and economic cooperation.