ANNOTATION:
Question about the origin of the concepts of System Theory

I need your help in locating 2-3 reliable sources for:
  1. When was the concept of a system first defined?
  2. Was the concept of a system in EE borrowed from Biology
     or indepedantly developed?
  3. When was the concept of an internal state of a system
      first used and defined?
  4. When was System theory first being recognized as an
     autonomous theory, or referred to as such?
  5. Any good anecdotes on the early phazes of System Theory
Thanking you in advance,
Professor Y. Shafee Give'on
Beit Berl College, Israel