What was going on when I was born?

''However, this court is convinced that a conviction which rests upon racial stereotypes, fears and prejudices violates rights too fundamental to permit deference to stand in the way of the relief sought.'' - Judge H. Lee Sarokin of Federal District Court in Newark, in overturning the murder convictions of Rubin (Hurricane) Carter and John Artis. [B4:5.]

Representative Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, pledged today that his panel would finish work on tax-revision legislation ''by Thanksgiving,'' but he said the bill ''may not sit well with the purists.'' In a speech prepared for delivery in Chicago tonight and again in Washington Friday, Mr. Rostenkowski said the bill would be ''a series of compromises.'' He vowed, however, to come in with a bill that is ''a lot better than present law, in both principle and practice.''

International Colombian forces broke a siege that began Wednesday after guerrillas stormed the Palace of Justic in Bogota and took dozens of judges and other Government employees hostage. The President of Colombia's Supreme Court and five other judges were among dozens of people killed in the battle. Radio stations quoted a military commander as saying all the rebels were dead. [Page A1, Col. 6.] AIDS seems to be spreading by conventional sexual intercourse among heterosexuals in Africa and is striking women nearly as often as men, according to researchers in Rwanda. Scientists are striving not only to control the incurable disease but also battling governments' suppression of information crucial to the search for the origin, cause and cure of AIDS. A continuing unchecked spread of AIDS among sexually active women in Africa has caused many babies to be born with the disease. [A1:3-5.]

A Federal judge, citing ''grave constitutional violations'' by prosecutors, today overturned the triple-murder convictions of Rubin (Hurricane) Carter and John Artis. The ruling, by Judge H. Lee Sarokin of District Court here, marked the latest twist in a series of courtroom conflicts that over 19 years resulted in two guilty verdicts by juries and two reversals of the convictions on appeals. Mr. Carter, who is 48 years old, was a leading middleweight boxer when he was arrested in 1966 in the fatal shootings of two men and a woman in a Paterson, N.J., bar. He has spent most of the last 19 years in New Jersey prisons, serving two consecutive life sentences. Mr. Artis, who is 39, was released on parole in 1981, after serving nearly 15 years of a life sentence.

When Congress set up the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in 1974, the aim was to protect the retirement income of workers at companies in trouble. But recently, after the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation terminated its pension plan, it seemed to some people that it was the companies that are being protected. ''The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is now being prostituted to help companies avoid going out of business,'' said William H. Knoell, chief executive officer of the Cyclops Corporation, a Pittsburgh-based steelmaker. He believes that the agency was ''put together to be a provider of last resort to pensioners whose companies have gone out of business.'' And he complained that ''in the particular case of our competitors at Wheeling-Pitt, it will give them a competitive advantage.''

Ever since the Aug. 12 crash of one of its planes in the worst single plane disaster in aviation history, Japan Air Lines has followed an elaborate protocol to atone for the 520 people killed, providing everything from personal apologies by the company's president to memorial services for the dead to financial reparations. But if there is a certain etiquette that companies here must follow, what has become clear in recent weeks is that it does not in any way cushion a company from the realities of business. Nor has the fact that the Government owns one-third of the airline offered it any kind of shield from the market place. Although the carrier remains profitable, the crash has driven customers away, prompted a sweeping management shake-up and sparked emotional criticisms of an airline already under fire for previous accidents. Crash's Toll One concrete measure of the toll the crash is taking on the company came on Wednesday, when Japan Air Lines reported recent sharp drops in domestic passenger traffic and reduced its estimates for year-end earnings. The company now predicts that its profits will amount to 7.1 billion yen, or $35.5 million, instead of the 21.5 billion yen, or $107.5 million, it had previously expected. It has also lowered its sights for revenue, and now looks for 836.1 billion yen, or $4.2 billion, instead of the 856.3 billion yen, or $4.3 billion, it had anticipated earlier.

As children, Dale Henhaffer and Karen Quitmeyer lived a few cul-de-sacs from each other in suburban Lindenwold, N.J. They rode the same bus to school. In their teens, Dale introduced Karen to his buddy, Bill Hackett, and Bill and Karen have been going together since. They all grew up, moved away to different suburbs and still were friends. Dale Henhaffer and his wife would take Bill and Karen out on their boat. Bill, a hair stylist, gave Dale Henhaffer free cuts.

Thousands of police officers demonstrated yesterday outside the offices of District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman in Brooklyn, calling her ''a persecutor of cops, not a prosecutor of criminals'' and demanding that she resign. The officers charged that Miss Holtzman was ''soft on crime'' and said they were upset that she had established a special unit to investigate charges of police brutality. They also said new guidelines announced by her office in June covering arrests by off-duty officers in which brutality is asserted showed that she was using the police to further her political aims. Miss Holtzman is considering running for the United States Senate next year.

Friday MUSIC ACROSS THE CHANNEL A program that ranges from 17th-century Scottish harp music to contemporary French folk music is this weekend's offering from the World Music Institute, which is presenting a concert tonight as part of its Music From Britain, Ireland and France series. Martin Carthy, the British folk guitarist and singer, is teamed with John Kirkpatrick on concertinas; the duo have been noted for their work with Steeleye Span, the Albion Country Band and Brass Monkey. Robin Williamson, an Edinburgh-born harpist and founder of the Incredible String Band, will perform the Scottish harp music on this program. Also on the agenda is Gabriel Yacoub, a French guitarist and singer and founder of the group Malicorne. Mr. Yacoub will be performing original and traditional French folk music. The concert begins at 8 P.M. in the Triplex Theater at 199 Chambers Street. Tickets are $10 and $12. Information: 618-1980.

A Moscow-bound Japan Air Lines jumbo jet strayed off course over the Sea of Japan last week, causing Soviet fighter planes to scramble on nearby Sakhalin Island, Government officials said today. The incident occurred in the same general area where a Soviet fighter shot down an off-course South Korean airliner two years ago, killing all 269 people aboard. This time, officials said, there was no encounter of any sort between the civil airliner and military aircraft. ''However, we regard this quite seriously because such an incident happened in a region where we should be paying special attention,'' Hideo Hirasawa, the airline's senior managing director, said.

A chart yesterday listing election results in major mayoral races reversed the party identifications of two Louisville candidates. Jerry Abramson, the winner, is a Democrat; Bob Heleringer is a Republican.

A new shelter for homeless families will open soon in Brooklyn, with its first occupants to be families now housed in a month-old shelter at Bellevue Hospital Center, officials said yesterday. They said 200 homeless men, most of them elderly and disabled, would then be housed in the Bellevue shelter. A spokesman for the city's Human Resources Administration, Jack Deacy, said the new family shelter would open in the former Cumberland Hospital in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. When the new shelter is opened, ''shortly,'' he said, all the families at the Bellevue shelter will be moved.