The Lord of the Rings and its precursor, The Hobbit, take place during the Third Age of Middle-Earth. Middle-Earth is a continent on a perpetually medieval fantasy world called Arda, which is filled with magical places, people, and events, and where the forces of Good and Evil vie for dominion. It has always been vague whether Arda is meant to be our "real" world in its prehistory, but I for one prefer to think of it in wholly imaginary terms. The confusion probably stems from the amount of detail and realism that Tolkien puts into the story, in terms of things like weather, climate, geography, and even phases of the moon. The history of Middle-Earth is broken up into four eras, aptly called the Four Ages.
During the First Age, the immortal Elves, the first Children of Ilúvatar (aka. Eru, "the One"... God, basically), awoke by the shores of Cuiviénen in Middle-Earth. Shortly thereafter, they were summoned to Valinor, the Blessed Realm, by the Valar. The Valar are akin to gods in the mythological sense, although they are rarely explicitly called such. In fact, in the creation story of Arda, their role is closer to archangels—witnesses and participants in creation rather than originators. In any case, the Valar pretty much run the show on Arda for old Ilúvatar. Those Elves who made the journey to Valinor (which is located across the western sea from Middle-Earth) became known as the Eldar, or High Elves, while those who remained in Middle-Earth became known as the Sindar, or Elves of the Twilight.
In Valinor, the Eldar learned many arts and crafts from the Valar (but don't think they became a bunch of Martha Stewarts). The greatest of the Eldar was Fëanor, who created three gems of surpassing beauty known as the Silmarils. However, the Silmarils were stolen by an evil Vala called Morgoth, the Dark Enemy of the World, who fled with them to Middle-Earth. Fëanor and a great number of his kinsmen vowed to pursue Morgoth and recover the Silmarils. Upon returning to Middle-Earth, the Eldar discovered that Mortal Men (aka. "Men"), the Second Children of Ilúvatar, had come into the world. Over the following centuries, the Elves and Men battled the forces of Morgoth (consisting of such vile creatures as orcs, trolls, and dragons), but failed to recover the Silmarils. Finally, Beren (a Man) and Lúthien Tinúviel (an Elf maiden) ventured into Morgoth's stronghold of Angband and stole one of the Silmarils from the evil Lord's crown. The great-grandson of Beren and Lúthien was Eärendil the Mariner, who sailed to Valinor to beg the Valar to take up arms against Morgoth. The First Age of Middle-Earth came to an end when Angband was cast down, much of the continent was submerged, and Morgoth himself was bound by the Valar for all eternity. All of this and more is related in detail in The Silmarillion, another fine book.
The Second Age was the time of Númenor, a great island kingdom of Men that lay within sight of Valinor itself. Eärendil had two sons, Elrond and Elros, the Peredhil (Half-Elven). Elrond chose to follow the path of immortal Elvenkind, while Elros chose to live out his life as a Mortal Man (albeit a long-lived one). Elros became the first king of Númenor. Back in Middle-Earth, in the land of Eregion, Elven smiths (led by Celebrimbor, grandson of Fëanor) began forging the Rings of Power, talismans that gave their wearers great supernatural abilities (not the least of which was invisibility). The Elves were unwittingly assisted in their efforts by Sauron, formerly the chief lieutenant of Morgoth. When the Elves had finished their labors, Sauron forged the Ruling Ring in the fires of Mt. Doom. The One Ring gave Sauron dominion over the others, causing them to be corrupted to his service. Only the Three Rings of the Elves remained free, having been forged by Celebrimbor alone, but even they could not be used without Sauron knowing about it. So for a time, the Elf lords set aside their Rings. The forging of the One Ring revealed Sauron's true nature to the Elves, who declared war upon him. The Dark Lord took the fortified land of Mordor to be his stronghold.
Meanwhile, the descendents of Elros, the Edain, became mighty kings among Mankind. The Númenóreans were powerful and just, but eventually came to envy the immortality of the Elves. This left them vulnerable to the lies and deceptions of Sauron. Through Sauron's treachery, Númenor was destroyed and sank beneath the sea. Only a handful of the Edain, led by the noble Elendil and his sons, Isuldur and Anárion, survived the destruction by sailing to Middle-Earth. There, Elendil established a kingdom in the North called Arnor, while Isuldur and Anárion established the kingdom of Gondor in the south. Sauron was believed to have been destroyed in the downfall of Númenor, but in fact, his spirit had survived and returned to Mordor. While the One Ring existed, he could not be utterly destroyed. However, he was no longer able to take on a benevolent appearance.
To combat Sauron's evil, Elendil joined forces with Gil-galad, last of the kings of the Eldar. Together, the forces of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men were able to storm Mordor, driving Sauron's forces before them. Elendil and Gil-galad were slain, but Isuldur cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, breaking his father's sword in the process. Sauron was not killed, however, because Isuldur kept the Ring for himself, rather than destroying it. The first defeat of Sauron signaled the end of the Second Age of Middle-Earth.
While on his way home from the war, Isuldur was ambushed by a company of orcs. He attempted to use the Ring's power of invisibility to escape, but it slipped from his finger while he was swimming across the Anduin river. Now visible, he was slain by an orc's arrow. The Ring lay at the bottom of the river for centuries, until it was accidentally found by two friends, Déagol and Sméagol. Sméagol promptly murdered Déagol and took the Ring for himself. He used his newfound invisibility for thieving and learning secrets. He was reviled by his people, who called him "Gollum," due to his peculiar habit of making gurgling noises in his throat. Eventually getting fed up with this abuse, Sméagol decided to leave home and made his way into the caverns beneath the Misty Mountains, where he thought he could learn the secrets of the world's making. This was in the year 2470 of the Third Age of Middle-Earth.
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