Carson, Maccabee is a historical novelization of mid-2nd century, when a Syrian king called Antiochus Epiphanes sought to exterminate the Jewish nation.
Antiochus Epiphanes IV issued an edict prohibiting the reading of the Torah and the Jews evaded this proscription by reading a related passage from the prophets.
Other instances of this paradigm in the Hebrew Scriptures that saw various imperial powers as the agents of God's punishment include Assyria (Isa 10:1-7), Babylon (Deut 28-30; Jer 25:1-11), Persia (Isa 45:1-13), and the Seleucids under Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc 6:12-17).
It commemorates a historic event, the victory of the Jewish warrior Judas Maccabaeus over the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes 22 centuries ago, as described in the ancient books of the Maccabees.