What was going on when I was born?

In a move to encourage employees of the Shell Oil Company to sell a crucial block of stock they hold, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group is offering to buy their holdings at an estimated $66 a share - $8 more than is being offered to other Shell stockholders, papers filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed yesterday. The proposal, in which Federal income taxes would be partly offset, is being offered to 28,000 employees, including top executives, and will cost Royal Dutch nearly $200 million. Acting over the objections of the company, of which it already owns nearly 70 percent, Royal Dutch is offering to pay all of Shell's stockholders $58 a share, or $5.5 billion in cash, to get the rest. The new provision for Shell employees would raise the overall cost to $5.7 billion.

Stripped to its Baroque bones by copper-hungry vandals and left behind by rescue plans that always fell apart, the old Police Headquarters - still looming over the low roofs of Little Italy - is now to be an apartment house. ''After being vacant for 10 long years, 240 Centre Street is about to start a new life,'' Mayor Koch said yesterday, announcing the sale of a building whose address was once synonymous with the police. ''This will be a restoration, not a renovation,'' one of the purchasers, Arthur D. Emil, said. ''We will do detailing as close to the original as possible.''

The Justice Department today charged a Swedish electronics company with illegally exporting American parts and equipment to the Soviet Union that gave the Russians advanced military radar capability. The department said Datasaab Contracting A.B., based in Jarfalla, Sweden, violated the terms of an export license it was granted by the Commerce Department in November 1977. The license included 10 restrictions designed to permit the company to sell only equipment with the capability of a secondary air traffic control system, able to track civilian aircraft for air safety purposes. But the Justice Department said the Swedish company ''knowingly violated'' those restrictions and between 1977 and 1980 shipped to the Soviet Union United States parts and technology from other Western countries that increased the capability of the system and ''gave the Soviet Union technology directly applicable to military research and development efforts.''

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1984 Markets Major banks raised the prime lending rate half a point, to 12 percent. The increase, the second in three weeks, brought the key interest rate to its highest level since October 1982, just before the recession ended. Most economists predicted that the prime rate would climb further but insisted that the economy was not yet endangered by rising interest rates. (Page A1.) Stock prices tumbled in heavy trading after the prime rate increase was announced. The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 18.01 points, to 1,130.55, its lowest close in nearly a year. (D1.)

The space shuttle Challenger is set to embark on an ambitious mission to restore an ailing satellite to health and thus demonstrate for the first time the ability of astronauts to make orbital service calls to extend the useful lifetime of space facilities. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:58 A.M. Friday, barring any last-minute problems with the spaceship or the weather. Clear skies are forecast, though there is some concern about the stiff high-altitude winds. The five-man crew plans to rendezvous with the wobbling, rolling satellite, Solar Max, capture it and bring it aboard to replace its malfunctioning systems. This is to involve two space walks, after which the satellite, if the repairs succeed, will be redeployed to resume its observations of the sun's turbulent behavior.

The House today approved its Democratic leaders' plan to cut the projected budget deficits by $181.7 billion over three years. The vote was 250 to 168, with 21 Republicans joining the Democrats. Only 29 Democrats voted no. Both parties agreed that the $206.8 billion budget deficit that was projected by the Congressional Budget Office for the next fiscal year must be reduced, but they differed on how to do it.

The Altman Foundation, which owns 98 percent of the New York- based B. Altman & Company retail chain, said yesterday that it might sell the retailer's seven stores. The company is one of the few independent department store chains remaining in the country. A sale announcement had been expected for some time because the Tax Reform Act of 1969 requires tax-exempt foundations to reduce their ownership in operating businesses to 50 percent or below within a certain period. But the foundation indicated yesterday that it was considering a sale of its full interest in Altman.

The nation's leading banks raised their prime lending rate one-half percentage point yesterday, to 12 percent. The increase, the second for this key interest rate within the last three weeks, brought the prime rate to its highest level since October 1982, just before the recession ended. Most bankers and economists predicted that the prime rate would climb still higher. ''It will rise to at least 12 1/2 percent by midyear, 13 percent by the end of the year, and will average at least 13 percent in 1985, and I stress the words 'at least,' '' said Irwin L. Kellner, senior vice president and chief economist of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company.

As a soldier and a politician, Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli Minister of Defense, has spent much of his adult life in battle. The site of his latest skirmish, however, is not Sinai or Parliament, but the United States Court House at Foley Square. The dispute here pits Mr. Sharon and a prominent New York law firm against Time Inc. Last year, Mr. Sharon filed a $50 million libel suit against Time magazine. The publication, he says, grievously harmed his reputation by stating that he encouraged the Christian Phalangists in their massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in the Beirut area in September 1982.

The Speaker of the House, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., said today that President Reagan was personally responsible for the deaths of the 260 American military personnel killed in Lebanon. ''The deaths lie on him and the defeat in Lebanon lies on him and him alone,'' Mr. O'Neill said. The Speaker's direct criticism of Mr. Reagan was in response to the President's accusation at his news conference Wednesday night that Congressional criticism had undermined Administration policy in Lebanon and encouraged terrorists. Charge Called Despicable Mr. O'Neill termed the President's charge ''despicable.''

Friday PRE-OSCAR SCREENINGS Before the Oscars are handed out Monday, you can decide for yourself which of the nominees for best short films deserve the honors. They are being shown, free, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street: documentaries today, animation tomorrow, live action Sunday, all at 2 P.M. Free tickets distributed at the Public starting at 1. Today's films include ''In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us?'', based on interviews with schoolchildren, and ''Flamenco at 5:15,'' which records a class given in Canada by the Spanish dancers Susana and Antonio Robledo. Information: 598-7100. DANCE WEEKEND UPTOWN' Dancers and dance enthusiasts can indulge themselves at a ''Dance Weekend Uptown'' in the Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts at City College, Convent Avenue and West 133d Street. The event, presented by the Harlem Dance Foundation, opens at 11 this morning with a lecture-demonstration by Carolyn Adams. A dance performance is scheduled tomorrow at 8 P.M. Master classes will be held Sunday from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. At 12:30, there is a seminar on dance education. Performances and master classes: $5 each; the lecture and seminar free. Information: 662-2057.

The Defense Department says it is ''pressing hard'' to encourage developing countries to purchase fighter planes that are made specifically for export and are relatively cheap to buy and easy to maintain. At the same time, department officials conceded in Congressional testimony last week that not one of these FX, or fighter export, aircraft has been sold. Instead, they said, in the last three years the United States has sold 1,100 of the more complex and expensive jet fighters now used by the Air Force and Navy. By some estimates the market for export fighter planes could reach $30 billion or more in the next few years because of the need of many foreign countries to replace their aging air forces.