You're looking for collapsing the stack that is the equivalent of delete history. Reset xform is the max version of freeze transform although the max one is better as I remember it actually generates the correct offset from zero based on the pivot points location when you apply the reset xform.
Most of the time if you're just modelling then you don't need anything resembling "delete history", since Max doesn't really work that way. As malcolm says, the closest thing to that is collapsing the stack, since that basically "bakes down" any modifiers into the base geometry. Usually, though, you don't need to collapse…
I'm not sure if you're looking to collapse the history stack which is a modifier stack in max not really a history because you can move the modifiers up and down. But to do that you right click the list and pick Collapse To or Collapse All. If you're looking to clear the transform and scale data you go to the hierarchy tab…
Hi, I'm not a Maya user, so I cannot answer the first question, but as far as I know you don't have history dependency in 3dsMax. About freezing nodes transforms for animation, the fastest way to achieve it is to press ALT and right click over the item you want to freeze. It opens a quad menus and on top-left you'll find…