Documentation (https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/4.0/manual/config/items/item) states that value of "History storage period" can be "1 hour to 25 years". When trying to use value that is outside this range, frontend reports an error:

Incorrect value for field "history": must be between "3600" and "788400000".

Neither documentation of the field, nor frontend says anything about special meaning of "0" storage period (which is also valid value for "History storage period" field).

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/4.0/manual/config/items/history_and_trends states that "item will update only inventory", if history is set to 0. It's not true. Another practical use-case is to avoid storing duplicate values when item passes received value to dependent items.