What was going on when I was born?

The Economy Industrial output rose only slightly in March. The 0.3 percent increase followed a 0.2 percent February drop. Industrial activity has failed to show any improvement for the last seven months. Analysts attributed this to a flood of imports. (Page D1.) Starts in housing soared by 16.2 percent in March. (D20.) A new stock options market was opened by the S.E.C. The decision to allow trading in over-the-counter options by all exchanges marks the first time that options on any one stock can be traded on more than one exchange. (D1.)

Two space-walking astronauts successfully rigged handmade plastic and wire snares to the tip of a mechanical arm today, preparing for an ingenious attempt Wednesday to activate a dormant communication satellite. Working swiftly and smoothly in the open cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery, Dr. Jeffrey A. Hoffman and S. David Griggs fitted two ''fly swatter'' devices, with holes for hooking and tripping a lever on the satellite, to the 50-foot-long robotic arm. The unrehearsed space walk took three hours, ending at 10:30 A.M., Eastern standard time. When the decidedly low-technology devices were strapped on and clamped down, Mr. Griggs stood aside, pleased, and asked the viewers in Mission Control, ''Is that beautiful or is that not beautiful?''

Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about comments by Elie Wiesel on President Reagan's plan to visit a German military cemetery incorrectly described the Bitburg gravesite. The 2,800 German soldiers buried there are from World War I as well as the Nazi era.

When Fanny and Eligio Meola bought a three-story brick house on a rutted dead- end street in Richmond Hill several years ago, their neighbors were wary of the Colombian newcomers and their four children. None of the longtime Italian residents on the working-class block actually communicated their displeasure, Mrs. Meola said, but she nonetheless heard the whispered second- or third-hand comments. ''They had the image that we'd be rowdy, dirty and loud, but we proved them wrong,'' said Mrs. Meola, a self-possessed woman who arrived in the United States 15 years ago with dreams that have largely been fullfilled. ''They soon realized we were a hard-working family, a serious family, and there's been a tremendous change.'' The change is a testimony to how one Queens neighborhood - long the preserve of German, Irish and Italian immigrants - has adjusted to its latest influx of striving foreigners. Once a solidly white area, Richmond Hill is now 22 percent Spanish-speaking, with an increasing number of Asians.

A chart in Business Day on Saturday with an article about bonuses given top executives by the Detroit auto makers misstated part of the income of F. James McDonald, president of the General Motors Corporation. He received a bonus of $810,000, half in cash and half in stock, and did not exercise any stock options.

Under a plan worked out with the Koch administration, the Port Authority has agreed to spend $85.7 million to renovate and expand the largest port terminal in the metropolitan area, Howland Hook on Staten Island. According to officials familiar with the plan - which is subject to approval by the Board of Estimate and the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - expansion of the port would create 900 new jobs and insure that the terminal's tenant, United States Lines, does not leave New York for a larger facility. The Koch administration's support for the proposal represents a shift in policy.

THANKS to a new-found abundance of fresh local ingredients and the popularity of what is fast becoming a uniquely American style of cooking, the Northwest is now enjoying a food renaissance - and this lush green city is the focal point. What is surprising is that the renaissance was so long in coming. Blessed with a moderate climate, plenty of rain, fertile soil and a long coastline, western Washington is tailor-made to produce the kinds of raw ingredients - fruits, vegetables, dairy products and seafood - that cooks dream about. Many of these ingredients have long been grown on small, often out-of-the-way farms, but until recently no one seemed interested in them except the farmers' neighbors. In the last few years, however, the ranks of young chefs who place a premium on local produce have grown. So while many farmers and fishermen continue to struggle at their livelihood, those in this area have an expanding market for their products. In many instances they have been encouraged to expand their varieties.

The Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation, blaming the steelworkers union for the failure of negotiations to restructure the company, yesterday filed a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code. It is the largest bankruptcy filing in the steel industry's history. Wheeling-Pittsburgh is the nation's seventh-largest steel company, after United States Steel, LTV, Bethlehem, Inland, Armco and National. All of the companies have gone through a period of staggering losses, layoffs and plant closings in response to pressure from imports and smaller markets and from their own problems with outdated equipment and high labor costs.

Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d and his Deputy Secretary, Richard G. Darman, have gained immense new authority as a result of the White House staff reorganization that President Reagan announced last week. ''In the end, it means that Baker is going to be an extraordinarily powerful individual,'' said Norman J. Ornstein, political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, a research group. Economic Issues Crucial Economic issues, such as the tax system, trade, the dollar, bank regulation and agriculture, are likely to dominate the Administration's domestic agenda for at least the next two years, Mr. Ornstein said, ''and this reorganization extends Baker's net beyond the narrower perspective of the Treasury.'' Last Thursday, Mr. Reagan announced that seven White House Cabinet councils, each managed by a Cabinet officer, would be consolidated into two: an Economic Policy Council, under Mr. Baker, and a Domestic Policy Council, under Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d. Both report to Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, the man who instituted the changes and who may be emerging as the Administration's most powerful official after the President.

The Securities and Exchange Commission opened up a new stock options market today, voting unanimously to approve over-the-counter options trading by all of the nation's securities exchanges as well as members of the National Association of Securities Dealers. It was the first time since the commission began allocating options trading to different exchanges in 1980 that the S.E.C. had permitted options on any one stock to be traded on more than one exchange. It represented a breakthrough for the N.A.S.D., which had been pushing for the right to trade options on O-T-C stocks since 1977. The commission also voted to accept a proposal that could potentially cut deeply into the business of many firms that specialize in over-the- counter trading. In approving an N.A.S.D. pilot project on side-by-side trading in O-T-C options - in which a firm makes a market in both the option and the underlying stock - the commission voted to permit the New York and other securities exchanges to make markets in the six largest unlisted stocks: MCI, Apple Computer, Intel, Tandem Computer, Digital Switch and Convergent Technologies.

Industrial production rose by only a modest three-tenths of 1 percent in March following a decline the month before, the Federal Reserve reported today. The small gain left production below the level of last August with industrial activity failing to show any improvement for the last seven months. Analysts said this weakness in the industrial sector would contribute to smaller growth in the economy this year. They attributed the lackluster industrial activity to a flood of imports that were siphoning sales from domestic industries.

The Soviet Union has told the United States that Soviet military personnel have been ordered not to use force or weapons against American military patrols in East Germany in the future, the State Department said today. Providing details on the meeting in Potsdam, East Germany, last Friday between the American and Soviet military commanders in divided Germany, the department said there had been no agreement on a formal apology or compensation by the Soviet side for the slaying last month of Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. He was on patrol in East Germany when he was shot by a Soviet guard. Each Side Has Patrols Since the end of World War II, Soviet forces in East Germany are allowed to maintain liaison missions with the American, British and French Armies in West Germany and send observer teams around West Germany. The Western allies, in turn, maintain liaison missions in East Germany and observe the Soviet forces. Although these patrols are often stopped and detained by the other side, until the death of Major Nicholson no American had been killed on such a mission.