I must confess that I only passively knew about AM, until I read this post that is. And just like you pointed out, I've always wondered why there is a space for them in radios. Thank you for this enlightenment.
A question though, is there any similarity between these two and the UHF/VHF in "analog" television broadcasting?
It delights me to know that I have impacted knowledge.
I want to believe they are similar. UHF is like the FM band, while VHF is like the AM band.