It was a historic day for the NDP on June 9, 2009, with Nova Scotians giving Darrel Dexter and his party a majority mandate.  Dexter, a lawyer, former journalist and ex naval officer, had been elected NDP leader in 2001.  Eight years later, he became the province's 27th premier, marking the first time in the province’s history the electorate had elected a NDP government.The NDP went on to govern for the next four years, offering a mix of progressive policies that are the hallmark of Maritimes' politics. In 2013, Dexter and his government were soundly defeated in that year’s election, dropping to third place status in the Nova Scotia Legislature.  Still, they had made provincial history on this date in 2009.caption id="attachment_621040" align="alignleft" width="522" Darrell Dexter/captionArthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.