Well, the Lore forum is probably one of the best places to look, especially on the (now archived) 1.0 forum which featured a lot of discussions with Fernewahles, one of the game's lore creators, so the info was straight from the source. Otherwise, fansites are your other alternative, some of which might be either incomplete or now out of date (due to retconning in ARR). As a start, here's some sites as an example:

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/wiki/in...tegory:History

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/C...al_Fantasy_XIV (portal for everything about FFXIV on the FF Wiki, although a lot of info on it, especially to do with ARR, is incomplete).

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...XIV_Storylines (only lists a summary of the version 1.0 storyline up to the beginning of ARR, but it's helpful for getting up to speed with the story if you're a new player).