What was going on when I was born?

The Economy Orders to factories rose 2.1 percent in May, reversing a three-month slide. Demand was led by a surge in orders for military goods. And while shipments rose, inventories fell. Analysts said that businesses would have to replenish stocks, giving a boost to industrial production. [Page D1.] Sales of new homes rose 9.7 percent in May, the largest increase in eight months. [D5.] Teachers across the nation are being urged to oppose the Administration's effort to end income tax deductions for state and local taxes. Public education would suffer if such deductions end, according to the National Education Association. [D20.]

''A MAINE shore picnic may start off in bathing suits, but it almost always ends up in down vests,'' William Meisle says with a warning look at his visitors. ''By nightfall you're wrapped in blankets and huddled round the fire. But if it's been a good picnic, that's all part of the fun.'' The best shore picnic, Mr. Meisle insists, is a Maine Fourth of July clambake. Shortly before Independence Day, when the coastal water warms up enough for hardy souls to consider taking the first swim of the season, people start thinking about the beach. The beach means shore picnics, and shore picnics mean clambakes. They are always called clambakes, although lobsters are the quintessential ingredient and the gastronomic focus of these feasts. And they have long been a grand Maine tradition involving family, friends, out-of-town guests and stray visitors, both the two-legged variety and the four-legged.

About 1.5 million Israeli workers went on a nationwide strike today, bringing the country to a partial standstill in protest against Monday's Government-ordered austerity measures. For the most part, however, the public seemed to greet the economic package with relief, viewing the strike as a one-day holiday before they grapple with what many regard as inevitable belt-tightening. The strike had little effect on the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Today it endorsed the Cabinet's emergency economic plan by a vote of 70 to 19. The strike did close all banks, schools, factories, offices, markets, the stock exchange and many shops for the day. No newspapers were published, and all regular radio and television programming was canceled. Only news reports were broadcast.

Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical today calling for ''solidarity'' with his fellow Slavs, religious tolerance in Eastern Europe and closer ties between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The encyclical, the fourth in John Paul's six and a half years as Pope, also emphasized ''the common Christian roots of Europe'' and said Christianity was ''one of the most solid points of reference'' for those who would reunite Eastern and Western Europe. ''Not even today,'' the Pope declared, ''does there exist any other way of overcoming tensions and repairing the divisions and antagonisms, both in Europe and the world, which threaten to cause a frightful destruction of lives and values.'' Anniversary of Saint's Death Titled ''Slavorum Apostoli'' (''The Apostles of the Slavs''), the encyclical was issued in honor of the 1,100th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius. With St. Cyril, his brother, St. Methodius brought Christianity to the Slavs in the ninth century and devised the Cyrillic alphabet.

A special force of 200 police officers seized 160 fugitives yesterday in a series of predawn sweeps at five city housing projects in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. ''It was a very successful operation,'' said Deputy Inspector Vincent Pizzo, the commanding officer of the housing police detective division, who supervised the sweeps. ''We got many of the people we went after, and nobody got hurt.'' The roundup - mainly of people who had failed to keep court appearances in connection with previous arrests on misdemeanor charges or for lesser violations - was part of an operation started yesterday that is largely aimed at combating a rising tide of robberies in Brownsville, police officials said. The officials said at least some of those arrested might be responsible for burglaries.

''Our joy at your return is substantial. But so is our pain at what was done to that son of America.

International A Reagan-Gorbachev meeting will be held over two days in Geneva in late November, Administration officials said. They said that President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had agreed to the relatively brief meeting. A senior Administration official said of the meeting, ''Our expectations are not great at all. Its main purpose will be to engage the new Soviet leadership and for each side to have a better understanding of the other.'' [Page A1, Col. 6.] Moscow named Andrei A. Gromyko to the prestigious but in the past largely ceremonial Soviet Presidency, ending his 28-year career as Soviet Foreign Minister. Mr. Gromyko was succeeded by Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the 57-year-old Georgian party leader. [A1:5.]

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company will announce today a venture with at least five leading Japanese companies, including Fujitsu and Hitachi, to offer sophisticated systems in Japan for transmitting computer data. The introduction of the systems, known as ''value added networks,'' will mark A.T.&T.'s first big push into the burgeoning Japanese telecommunications market since it was opened to foreigners last spring. According to telecommunications professionals, the venture could also help A.T.&T. sell computers and other business equipment in Japan.

Andrei A. Gromyko wound up a 28-year career as Soviet Foreign Minister today and was named President of the Soviet Union, a prestigious but in the past largely ceremonial position. Mr. Gromyko, who is 75 years old, was succeeded in the foreign affairs post by Eduard A. Shevardnadze, 57, the party leader of the Soviet republic of Georgia. Mr. Shevardnadze was promoted to full membership in the ruling Politburo on Monday. The changes in the governmental structure were set in motion in a session of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal Parliament, as Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, nominated Mr. Gromyko for the presidency. In so doing, Mr. Gorbachev broke a pattern set by Leonid I. Brezhnev of combining the party leadership, which is the seat of authority, with the position of the nation's President. Choice of Georgian a Surprise The choice of Mr. Shevardnadze to succeed Mr. Gromyko as the Foreign Minister came as a surprise to diplomats since the Georgian official has no foreign policy background.

At the end of the working day, Manhattan bars, like bars in other parts of the country, begin to buzz. From 4 P.M. to about 7 P.M. is the happy hour, celebrating the end of the workday. ''I like to unwind,'' said Rosie Stiles, who works as a maid on the Upper West Side and stops by Pat's Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue and 67th Street a few times a week. Pat's Bar draws a variety of customers. Some work for the Red Cross across the street. Others work at Lincoln Center. At day's end, young families and senior citizens mingle with sports fans and construction workers. ''This is a neighborhood bar - we've been here 16 years,'' said Jenny Patalano, whose husband, Joseph, is a co-owners of the bar.

Several of the 39 freed American hostages began expressing feelings of bitterness and vengeance toward their captors yesterday, in sharp contrast to sympathetic statements made earlier by other hostages. For example, Peter W. Hill, a 57-year-old guide for religious tours, said in an interview in Wiesbaden, West Germany, that after his 17-day ordeal he felt ''anger, frustration, a sense of being raped, ravaged by these animals.'' ''I think that Reagan was absolutely right when he called them thugs, thieves and murderers,'' he said in an interview with the CBS ''Morning News'' program, ''because that's what they were, thugs.'' Bristling With Rage Until yesterday the statements the hostages were permitted to make to reporters often suggested approval of their treatment or sympathy with the hijackers' principal demand, the release of 766 mainly Shiite detainees held by Israel. Some, like Mr. Hill, had been noncommittal.

For more than a year, the growth of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines has been a matter of increasing concern. Yet the rebellion has been mainly a rural phenomenon, adhering to the Maoist edict of capturing the countryside and isolating the cities. But in recent weeks, gun battles between Communist guerrillas and Government forces have been fought in Manila itself, underscoring the rapid expansion of the insurgent campaign. ''Even Metropolitan Manila is now threatened,'' said Salvador H. Laurel, president of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, the largest grouping of opposition parties.