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To celebrate its 75th anniversary, Dairy Queen is giving away free soft-serve cones on March 16.

The Edina-based chain started in 1940 with a location in Joliet, Ill. Today, it has over 6,000 outlets, including 4,800 in the United States.

On March 16, "participating" Dairy Queens and DQ Grill and Chills will serve free small vanilla cones, one per customer, the company said in a statement. The majority of DQ outlets are expected to participate.

Dairy Queen introduced its venerable banana split in 1953 and the Dilly Bar in 1955. By then, Dairy Queen had already grown to 2,600 outlets.

Since 1998, Dairy Queen has been part of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's publicly-traded investment company. Prior to that, DQ was an independent publicly-traded company.