My effort on this page is to identify some important connections between what the archaeological record and other non-Homeric sources tell us about the history of Greece during the times Homer talks about and Homer's texts themselves. It turns out there are clear connections, but also clear gaps between "history" and "Homer."
First, the Mycenaeans. How does the Troy we find in Turkey compare to the Troy of Homer. Homer's Iliad includes references which stretch back in time from the time of Homer (ca. 800) to Mycenaean times. Naturally, people want to know about Homer's Troy. The site of Troy has certainly been found. Its remains are at Hissarlik in Turkey, whose broad geography (the layout of the river, the sea, and the town) match Homer's description well. There are many levels of habitation at Troy. Level Troy VI is Mycenaean Troy. It differs significantly from its predecessors, but does not show signs of being violently overthrown. It had horses, iron weapons, tools, and it lasted until about 1300, when it was so thoroughly destroyed that an earthquake is likely. Troy VIIa has been identified as Homer's Troy, and dates from about 1260, when it was destroyed by fire (perhaps an overthrow followed by pillaging and burning?). For what it is worth, Eratosthenes, a Hellenistic scholar, dated the Trojan War to 1184 by reason of genealogical tables. Obviously, that is a rather naive procedure. The problem is that Troy VIIa does not show sure signs of really being Homeric Troy. The description of Troy from the Iliad does not match its layout well enough. It seems that the Homeric poets were either making things up or working with a tradition that had become distorted.
In terms of the people in Homer, we hear about Phoenicians, which seems to be a catchall description of anyone from the area of Cilicia in Southern Asia Minor to Egypt (Herodotus later uses the same catchall term in the same way). We also hear of Cimmerians to the North of Asia Minor, and Phrygians in the interior of Asia Minor. We also learn that the Trojan forces are a gathering of forces from many different areas, many of which do not speak Greek! The Greeks themselves in Homer are not called Greeks. They are called Argive, Achaean, or Danaan. The "Greeks" of Homer were a loose group of regional leaders under the supreme leadership of Agamemnon. We should not imagine those peoples as unified as a nation. They were unified by language and culture, which included certain pan-Hellenic oracles (Delphi, Delos, Dodona) and the Olympic Games (traditionally dated to 776BCE).
The connections to "history" in Homer include not only references to things that are clearly Mycenaean. He also reflects to some degree Dark Age Greece. It turns out that Homer has mixed the Mycenaeans and Dark Age cultures. In Homer, we find Agamemnon offering Achilles 7 cities, racehorses, captive women, 10 talents of gold, tripods, glittering pots, etc. That kind of wealth seems to smack of a palace culture like what existed in Mycenaean times. No Dark Age warrior or king had that kind of wealth. And yet, Homer speaks of palaces, but they do not resemble those of archaeological finds of Mycenaeans. He has his heroes in chariots, but has no clue how to have them use them effectively. They use them as taxis to and from battle, essentially. It seems the Mycenaeans knew what to do with them. Homer refers to cremation of the dead, but Mycenaeans buried their dead. In the Dark Ages, however, for a while cremation was widespread, and then later, burial came back into style. The tripods and glittering pots of Homer were known in Mycenaean times, then disappeared in the Dark Ages, and came back later in the Dark Ages. The structure of Homeric society and the administration of it are quite different from Mycenaean times and resemble more closely what we know of the Dark Ages.
The upshot of all that is that Homeric poets seem to be operating in a time when "History" was not something that could be looked up and verified. Their tradition gave them chariots, palaces, certain weapons, iron, tripods, cremation, all in a jumble, with some elements dating back farther than others. Homer has Mycenaean things and places, but probably Dark Age society and culture.
Homeric Culture consisted of petty kings and nobles who had good lands and flocks and went on warring raids often. Their sons took over from them normally, but not necessarily (in the Odyssey, Telemachus has no good claim until Odysseus, his father, returns: when Agamemnon is killed, Aegisthus, his killer, just rules in his place). These kings or lords were lawgiver, judge, and commander of their men in war. To be sure, there was a code of honor and conventions which they followed, which included table-fellowship, gift-exchange, sacrifice to the gods, and burial rites, but there was no formal legal framework, no bureaucracy, and power struggles were endemic. Things were fluid and changeable in terms of who was in power, what their decision might be, but there was a broader framework of strong traditions that were generally followed. There was a clear line between nobles and non-nobles. "The people" are silent in Homer, but they had some voice, as evidenced by the existence of the assemblies: what are they for if the people have no power? Women captured as slaves seem to be no worse off than other women, and there did not seem to be a large slave economy. There are special trades that receive greater honor: seers, bards, metalworkers, woodworkers, physicians. As for trading and merchants, that was the business of foreigners (Odysseus takes it as an insult to be mistaken for a merchant). A noble acquired foreign goods either by gift-exchange or by raiding, i.e. with honor. From what we can tell, writing returned to Greece around the time of Homer and was used perhaps initially for Homeric poetry, but certainly for poetry, gravestones, pots, and lists (Olympic Victors). Although the North Semitic script they adopted had been used by the Semites from whom they adopted it for religious texts and chronicles, the Greeks did not initially use it for that.