What was going on when I was born?

A picture caption in Metropolitan Report on Tuesday with an article on the rededication ceremonies at the Museum of Modern Art misidentified the men standing in front of a painting. Donald B. Marron, chairman of the museum's expansion committee, was at left and the artist Jasper Johns at right.

A clutch of prominent people from business, entertainment and politics who invested in two intricate partnerships designed to generate tax losses may now have more losses than they bargained for. The tax shelter partnerships have filed for bankruptcy, and the investors are facing real losses - they may be asked to come up with many times their original stake to help pay off the partnerships' creditors. Among the individual investors are Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., the former Secretary of State, who invested $50,000, and Arthur B. Laffer, the supply-side economist, who put up $25,000. Harold B. Mayer, who retired three years ago as chairman of Oscar Mayer & Company, weighed in with $500,000. Avery Corman, who wrote the novel ''Kramer vs. Kramer,'' invested $175,000.

Lot No. 173, Suzuki motorcycle,'' yelled the auctioneer. ''Do I hear $50?'' In the middle of the auditorium, 15-year-old Michael Fitzgerald's hand shot up. ''I have $50. Do I have $75?'' said the auctioneer, and a hand was raised at the front of the room. Michael bid $100, his competitor bid $125, then Michael bid $150.

Secret military trials and executions of people accused of taking part in an attempted coup last month are under way, according to Government officials and diplomats here. ''The trials are going on,'' an official of this central African country said. ''Hundreds of people are involved. Those who took an active part in the putsch will be executed.''

''There's always, in any organization, likely to be infighting and pettiness.

In the 20 months since the General Motors Corporation canceled the second shift at its assembly plant here, the survival of one of the largest bluecollar employers in the suburbs of New York City has been in doubt. Automobile assembly plants, like other smoke-billowing manufacturing concerns, tend to be short-lived when they are used at only half capacity. And now, after being offered a long list of economic incentives from the state, General Motors must decide whether to make a huge investment in its plant here or close it down. Efforts by state and local officials to keep the plant, designed to employ 5,000 workers, have been intensified by the fear that its loss would do irreversible damage to the suburban economy.

The board of directors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted yesterday to sue the maker of the Grumman Flxible buses. The city's transit system has 851 Grumman buses, all of which were pulled out of service earlier this year for safety reasons. The board voted to sue to recover the $92 million cost of the four-year-old buses from the manufacturer, the Grumman Corporation of Bethpage, L.I. Nine members of the 14-member board were present; 7 voted to sue and 2 abstained. The chairman of the M.T.A., Robert R. Kiley, said damages would also be sought, but he would not say how much.

Stock prices dropped yesterday in much heavier trading after advancing moderately on Tuesday. The star performer was Teledyne, which soared 32 points, to 187 3/4. The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 10.78 points, to 1,165.52. The day before the average rose almost 10 points although several major banks raised their prime lending rates to 12 1/2 percent from 12 percent.

- FROM the road it looks ordinary enough: an old manor house, no great rarity in the lanes and byways of the English Midlands, in a hodgepodge of styles and of materials: Tudor brick, yellow ironstone, tan brick, gray fieldstone, bits of wood, stucco. It looks, indeed, like what it was, the family home of prosperous though never wildly rich country people. But Canons Ashby, tucked away near the hamlet of Moreton Pinkney in an obscure corner of Northamptonshire, between BBC antennas at Daventry and George Washington's ancestral home at Sulgrave Manor, is much more special than it looks. It is special because of who lived there, what they left behind and the way in which it has been preserved.

A report in the Company Briefs column of Business Day on May 1 incorrectly described the location and business of Channel Industries, which acquired 50.1 percent of American Vision Centers Inc. The company, based in New York City, makes contact lenses.

Governor Cuomo today released a list of New York State's ''12 most wanted'' criminals and urged the public to help in their capture. The list - the first by a state, officials said - is culled from 11,174 suspects wanted in connection with violent felonies across the state. At a news conference, Mr. Cuomo urged the public to ''remain alert for those who threaten all of us, to look and watch and pay attention.''

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1984 The Economy Martin S. Feldstein resigned as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, effective July 10. The departure of Mr. Feldstein, who frequently differed with the White House on economic policy, had been expected. But he used the occasion to again support the Fed in the face of White House criticism. (Page A1.)