What was going on when I was born?

Under this heading, The Times amplifies articles or rectifies what the editors consider significant lapses of fairness, balance or perspective. A Washington dispatch last Friday discussed the Soviet construction of a large radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia.

The Ohio Legislature this morning approved emergency legislation that would permit some of the 70 state-insured savings and loans that were closed Friday to reopen. Gov. Richard F. Celeste was expected to sign the legislation immediately, and a spokesman for the Governor said some institutions may be allowed to reopen as early as today. The measure would allow an institution to reopen as soon as it applied for Federal deposit insurance and state banking officials determined that the thrift unit was in strong enough financial shape to qualify for the insurance. The impact of the crisis spread to international financial markets yesterday and was blamed for a rise of about $36 an ounce in the price of gold and a sharp decline for the dollar. (Page D1.)

An article in Business Day yesterday about the trial of a former Wall Street Journal reporter, R. Foster Winans, incorrectly described earlier testimony about the source of a suggestion to share profits. Peter Brant, a former stockbroker, had testified that it was Mr. Winans's suggestion. Mr. Winans's salary was also misstated. It was raised to $530 a week when he began writing a column, ''Heard on the Street.''

Because of an editing error, an article in some editions of Metropolitan Report yesterday about state budget negotiations in Albany misattributed testimony before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. It was a lawyer, Robert Fink (not Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink), who criticized the Cuomo Administration's tax-enforcement bill.

Technology and gold issues yesterday joined media stocks in a rally that gave Wall Street its best gain in two months. The Dow Jones industrial average improved 21.42 points, to 1,271.09, after rising 2.32 points on Monday. The New York Stock Exchange index rose 1.40 points, to 103.91, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index jumped 2.66 points, to 179.54. The average price per share rose 46 cents.

The days when the communications industry was run like an exclusive club, with most of the nation's largest broadcasting and publishing companies as members, may be coming to an end. Although the merger of the American Broadcasting Companies and Capital Cities Communications Inc. is to be a friendly alliance between two of the club members, some analysts say an important element in the transaction was probably fear at ABC of a hostile takeover attempt by a corporate raider or some company outside the communications industry. Executives of both Capital Cities and ABC have said that takeover fears played no role in their negotiations. But talks between the two companies began after reports that the Bass brothers, owners of an aggressive Texas-based development firm, had purchased and then sold a stake in ABC last fall. And there is no reason to believe that the last has been seen of attempts at outside takeovers. Instead, the ABC deal and other recent events may open the door of the communications club to outsiders as never before.

A flower show has returned to the city. It is more than welcome on this first day of spring. After a 15-year hiatus, the big event opened yesterday at a new home, the Hudson River Exhibition Pier, at 50th Street. Visitors will be pleased. Hundreds of pink tulips, purple hyacinths, yellow daffodils, orchids in many colors, primroses, anemones and bright red azaleas have turned the tunnel- like pier into a beautiful spring garden. Golden honey locusts, bamboo and crab apples, forced into leaf and flower, form a canopy for the enchantment. A light and airy gazebo greets visitors while triangular flower beds on either side of the long footage steer traffic in and around the features. Some have fountains; some are softened by green sod edged with flowers.

Housing construction fell a steep 11 percent in February, the biggest decline in almost a year, the Commerce Department said today. Analysts blamed erratic swings in apartment building activity for the drop, but some also expressed concern that mortgage rates had begun rising again. The report said construction of new homes dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.64 million units last month, erasing most of a 12.9 percent increase in January. The volatility in both months came from apartment construction activity. After soaring 68 percent in January, construction of apartment buildings with five or more units plunged 36.7 percent in February.

A truck full of lemon trees was unloaded on Friday. The conifers were positioned on Sunday. Forty thousand tulips arrived Monday. But the 10-foot-high bamboo plants, which were to be in by Friday, were stuck over the weekend at a truck depot in Queens, only complicating an already arduous task: putting on the New York Flower Show.

Cartier Inc. and two executives of its Fifth Avenue jewelry store have been indicted and charged with a scheme to let their customers avoid sales taxes, city and state officials announced yesterday. The renowned jewelry store and its manager and assistant manager are accused of falsifying business records and encouraging customers to avoid sales taxes by providing bogus out-of- state addresses, State Attorney General Robert Abrams said during a City Hall news conference with Mayor Koch, City Finance Commissioner Paul A. Crotty and the state's Commissioner of Taxation and Finance, Roderick G. W. Chu. A three-year city investigation showed that two-thirds of all Cartier sales went untaxed and that no taxes were paid on more than 90 percent of jewelry worth $10,000 and more. The combined city and state sales tax is 8.25 percent, or, on a $10,000 jewelry item, $825.

''I am pleased that the Senate today voted to support the MX Peacekeeper missile and to send a message of American resolve to the world.'' - President Reagan. (A1:6.)

The Reagan Administration scored an important victory today as the Senate voted decisively in favor of releasing $1.5 billion for the construction of 21 additional MX missiles. The tally was 55 to 45 as 10 Democrats joined 45 Republicans in supporting the Administration only hours after President Reagan went to Capitol Hill and made a fervent personal appeal for the intercontinental missile. Eight Republicans and 37 Democrats voted against the President, but in the final hours of debate almost every wavering vote swung to the Administration side. Today's vote was the first of two needed in the Senate to release the funds under a complex procedure set up last year. The Senate is to vote a second time later this week and the House is to cast two votes next week.