Why did the olympics use to last so long? Even months?

You're talking about a time when the Olympics played second billing to the World's Fair. Up until around 1960, the World's Fair was a huge deal. Countries competed fiercely to host them. Up until around 1920, the Olympics used to take place in the same city and at the same time as the World's Fair, which stretched on for months.

It was so confusing that some Olympic competitors thought they were involved in an athletic portion of the World's Fair and didn't learn they were Olympians until many years later. I think I read that many 1904 and 1908 Olympic events were held in city parks. I imagine most spectators were passers-by.

The fact of the matter is, the organization of the Olympics were very good in 1896, then awful in 1900 and 1904. They improved some through the 1912, then everything was on hold during World War I.

The last Olympics to go on for months was the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. Those started in April and ended in August. Based on the sketchy details in Wikipedia, I'm confident saying the only event held in April was ice hockey; the rest were done in August. In other words, the 1924 Olympics didn't linger pointlessly; there was a lull between ice hockey and the rest of the 'summer' events. In 1924, ice hockey was removed from the Summer Olympics and added to the newly-created Winter Olympics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey_at_the_Oly...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Summer_Olympics

Because the longer they are the less people are intrested in them. You have to think of it threw the broadcasting stations eyes. If you can cram all the games in a 2 hour show for a couple weeks that its great viewers and it makes CBS alot of money. If it lasted for 2 months then there wouldnt be as many games going on in one day so they could only broadcast about a 30 min show, that means less viewers and less money. And if it lasted for months alot more people wouldnt watch it so they would eventually start losing money broadcasting it.