What was going on when I was born?

President Reagan said today that the United States could not passively accept the ''permanent subjugation of the people of Eastern Europe.'' Speaking at a White House luncheon commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising against Nazi forces, Mr. Reagan said the United States ''rejects any interpretation of the Yalta Agreement that suggests American consent for the division of Europe into spheres of influence.'' The 1945 Yalta agreement between the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union divided Germany into zones of occupation and set up a provisional government for Poland that included figures allied with both the West and Soviet Union. The leaders agreed to free elections for the remaining countries in Europe liberated from the Nazis.

Ruling that ''private, consensual homosexual conduct is not constitutionally protected,'' a Federal appeals panel today upheld the Navy's discharge of a petty officer who acknowledged engaging in homosexual acts. Judge Robert H. Bork wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel that while several Supreme Court decisions had recognized a vaguely defined constitutional ''right of privacy,'' the Court ''has never defined the right so broadly as to encompass homosexual conduct.'' The 21-page ruling today was the broadest and most ringing repudiation a Federal appeals court had given to the view of some libertarians that laws penalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional. Precedent Somewhat Unclear While some lower Federal courts have suggested that private homosexual conduct enjoys a degree of constitutional protection, the Supreme Court in 1976 affirmed a lower court decision suggesting the contrary. Because the Supreme Court issued no opinion in that case, its importance as a precedent is somewhat unclear.

A key report on the $1.6 billion plan to rebuild Times Square says the project is likely to lead to more crowded buses and subway trains than previously predicted, to deep shadows around 42d Street and to higher rents in surrounding areas. However the report, the final environmental impact statement prepared by consultants to the city and the state's Urban Development Corporation, also lists ways to limit these problems and to help the project achieve its primary goal of rehabilitating Times Square. The 1,100-page statement, which is required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act and is a revision of a draft that was issued last February, is to be printed Monday. It will be considered for approval by the development corporation Thursday.

There are tenants in New York who describe John Anthony Zaccaro as a model landlord, and there are others who call him names. Friends see him as an avid sportsman and fierce competitor, a generous neighbor, a stickler for fairness. Almost everyone agrees he has a penchant for privacy. As the husband and business partner of Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro, the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, the 51-year-old Mr. Zaccaro and his business activities have been the subject of considerable public attention, including controversy over his refusal to release his income tax returns, as promised by his wife. The couple spent nine hours yesterday at the New York offices of the accounting firm of Arthur Young & Company going over financial material scheduled for disclosure Monday. The disclosures are part of a required filing by Vice-Presidential candidates, but the law does not require that candidates or their spouses disclose their tax forms.

The Republican platform committee today tentatively adopted a preamble asserting that American voters face a choice ''between two diametrically opposed visions of what America should be.'' The statement on the contest between President Reagan and Walter F. Mondale was adopted as the committee ended a week of debate and delegates began arriving in this sweltering city for a convention that will formally ratify the platform Tuesday. The four-day affair opening on Monday is planned as a Texas-size coronation of Mr. Reagan and Vice President Bush. As workers scrambled to complete preparations for the opening of the convention the upbeat tone of the platform was matched by the many pictures of a beaming President that have been attached to the concrete walls of the mammoth convention center.

Military and police sources say they have adopted a more sytematic and severe counterinsurgency strategy against leftist guerrillas in this Andean region. They say their strategy involves military and psychological tactics and includes the use of terror as a dissuasive method, stepped up formation of peasant militia forces to create grass-roots resistance to the guerrillas and control of information and the spreading of false reports, known in intelligence circles as disinformation. But Peruvian judicial and church sources say the armed forces and the police are increasingly resorting to kidnappings, torture and summary executions of civilians in their fight against the guerrillas, members of the Shining Path movement, who have said they are struggling to impose a Chinese- style political system in Peru. In a recent interview President Fernando Belaunde Terry denied reports of growing human rights violations, including executions, by the police and military. He said these charges came from ''ingenuous institutions'' that serve as ''useful idiots'' for the guerrillas. The army chief, Gen. Julian Julia, said last week that there was a campaign under way to discredit the army. The judicial and church sources said the official violence has become worse since mid-July, when the Government gave the armed forces unlimited control over 13 provinces in the emergency zone.

A five-story residence collapsed here today, killing 10 people, only a day after an inspector had said the building needed nothing more than slight repairs. There were 90 people in the building when it fell.

Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, the imprisoned opposition leader, has renounced his presidential candidacy but urged his National Party to take part in the November elections, according to party officials and relatives. The military Government of Gen. Gregorio Alvarez has formally enacted a plan for elections Nov. 25 to return the country to civilian rule on March 1. Mr. Ferreira Aldunate's decision freed the party to select another presidential candidate.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Aug. 17 (Reuters) - President Salvador Jorge Blanco changed his Minister of Defense and the chiefs of the armed forces and police today.

About 6,000 demonstrators chanting anti-Government slogans faced off today against policemen with riot shields and water cannon in an eight-hour confrontation that ended peacefully.

When visitors arrive at his farm here in the southeast tip of Zimbabwe, Ian D. Smith likes to show them the cattle that are his pride: the Brahman bulls, lowering and heavy, or the steers, ripe for slaughter, sleek of coat and plump of line. Dogs and grandchildren and geese escort the party, and the conversation is of farming concerns: the price of beef and diesel fuel, the drought that wilted the corn crop, arrangements for the labor force. But when the talk turns to other matters, to a history that brought fame and notoriety and war, the simplicities blur and fade. Mr. Smith, craggy-featured and gray-haired, was the last white Prime Minister of a country called Rhodesia. He was a rebel against the British crown who led his white followers into a conflict with black nationalists, who branded him a war criminal. The battle ended four years ago, with 30,000 people killed.

The Security Council voted approval today of a resolution that ''strongly rejects and declares as null and void'' constitutional changes proposed by South Africa. Included in these changes, which are scheduled to take effect in September, is a provision for a parliament of three houses - one for whites, one for people of mixed race and the third for Indians. Blacks, who make up the majority in the nation, are not to be represented.