It's National Ice Cream Day!

Carvel Giving Away Free Cones to Kids Today

No matter how you feel about Ronald Reagan's other policies, everyone's got to agree the Gipper did good when he created National Ice Cream Day. In 1984, he actually declared July National Ice Cream Month, but singled out today, July 15, as National Ice Cream Day.

Following the lead of other franchises like Chick-fil-A and Starbucks who recently offered customers freebies, Carvel will be giving out one free soft-serve cones to kids age 12 and under all day today.

In honor of this tasty celebration, here are some fun facts about everyone's favorite way to cool off:

• The origins of ice cream go way back to the 4th century B.C. when the Roman emperor Nero ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined it with fruit toppings. In 1847, the first hand-crank ice cream maker was developed.

• An average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream.

• In the U.S., all ice cream needs to have a minimum of 10% milk fat if it is to be labeled "ice cream. Reduced fat has at least 25% less total fat than regular ice cream, light has 50% less fat and nonfat has to have less than .50 grams per serving. Sorbet contains no milk.

• Out of all 50 states, California produces the most ice cream. Last year, the U.S. produced more than 1.5 billion gallons.

READ: Can You Get Addicted to Ice Cream?

• More Americans prefer vanilla ice cream to any other ice cream. After that comes chocolate, cookies n' cream, strawberry and chocolate chip mint.

• It takes up to 50 licks to eat a single-scoop ice cream cone.