I can't speak to Python, but Java was for a short but incredibly relevant time, the cross-platform scripting language of web servers.
Java was the scripting language of WebSphere and Tomcat and a few others. During the first dotcom boom, it was the lowest-risk platform choice.
I consider Python to be the scripting language of "everything else". In the apps I use frequently, Python scripting support shows up in Blender, GEdit, and Linux Mint.
To add a few high profile apps, Python is the scripting language of LibreOffice, Virtualbox and ArcGIS, among many others.
Yes, but I feel like python became the scripting language of the apps you mentioned because it was already popular, not the other way around.