The city has five K–5 elementary schools: Ayers Ryal Side, Centerville, Cove, Hannah, and North Beverly. The city's sole middle school is Briscoe Middle School, serving grades 6–8. The city's other middle school, Memorial Middle School, has been torn down to be rebuilt into a new 5–8 middle school. The new school will be called Beverly Middle School, and will be the primary middle school, when it opens. The future of Briscoe Middle School is unknown at the moment.

Beverly is home to several private schools, including New England Academy, Harborlight-Stoneridge Montessori School, Kindercare Learning Center, Beverly School for the Deaf, Saints Academy, the Bright Horizons School, The Waring School, Glen Urquhart School, Shore Country Day, Mrs. Alexander's School, and several others.

Beverly High School is a grade 9–12 public high school located in Beverly. It was founded in 1858, and currently enrolls over 1300 students. In September 2011, construction was completed on a new academic building, which is now in use by students and faculty. Northshore Academy offers an alternative high school provision in Beverly.

The city is home to Endicott College, which offers 23 bachelor programs, 27 concentrations, and 27 minors. Master programs are offered in Business, Education, Nursing, Computer Science, and Political Science. Beverly is also home of Montserrat College of Art, a private four-year visual arts college.

• The Beverly Cotton Manufactory site, the first cotton mill in America. The monument sits in North Beverly next to the Veterans Memorial and North Beverly fire station.

• The Cabot Street Cinema Theatre, boasted the world's longest running magician's show; Le Grand David Spectacular Magic Company ran from February 1977 through May 2012. The theater is early 20th-century style and shows films on a regular basis. The Cabot was purchased in 2014 to save it from demolition, and a board of directors created. In 2015 the Cabot Theatre was renovated and now hosts concerts in addition to movies and other community events.

• The Larcom Theatre, a beautiful & historic multipurpose music & performing arts theatre in Downtown Beverly. Built in 1912, this 560-seat restored vintage theatre known for its' amazing acoustics & intimate setting, will take you back in time. Built by the Ware brothers (architects of the Cabot Theatre.

• Harry Ball Field, home of the Beverly Little League—first and oldest little league in Massachusetts

• Hurd Stadium (home of the Beverly Panthers)

• John Balch House (c. 1679)

• John Cabot House (1781)

• Exercise Conant House (1695)

• John Hale House (c. 1694)

• Lynch Park & Beaches, located in the city's Cove section, is a popular summer spot for swimming, kayaking, sunbathing, and picnics.

• The North Shore Music Theatre, offering a program of musicals and celebrity concerts

• The Odd Fellows' Hall, on the corner of Cabot and Broadway streets

• Montserrat College of Art

Originally part of Salem and the Naumkeag Territory, the area was first settled by Europeans in 1626 by Roger Conant. Because of religious differences with Governor John Endecott, Beverly would be set off and officially incorporated in 1668, when it was named "Beverley" after Beverley, the county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Surviving from the settlement's early history is the Balch House, built, according to dendrochronological testing performed in 2006, about 1679.

The first ship commissioned for the US military, by the US Army (the US Navy had yet to exist), was the armed schooner Hannah. It was outfitted at Glover's Wharf and first sailed from Beverly Harbor on September 5, 1775. For this reason Beverly calls itself the "Birthplace of America's Navy"—a claim disputed by other towns, including nearby Marblehead. The Hannah can be found on the patch of the city's police department.

Beverly has also been called the "birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, as the site of the first cotton mill in America (1787), and largest cotton mill of its time. The town is the home of one of the country's first Sunday schools (which was built in 1810). Beverly was incorporated as a city in 1894.

In 1902, the United Shoe Machinery Corporation built a quarter-mile stretch of factory buildings in Beverly. The stretch was an early landmark example of reinforced concrete construction, devised by concrete pioneer Ernest L. Ransome. In 1906 it went into production. Closed in 1987, the complex was bought by Cummings Properties in 1996, and developed into a campus of hi-tech companies and medical offices. Parker Brothers, makers of Monopoly and other games, has offices in Beverly. The city is also home to the Landmark School, known worldwide for the education it provides for students with learning disabilities.

President William Howard Taft rented a house for the summer White House from Mrs. Maria Evans in Beverly. In the summers of 1909 and 1910, he lived in a house located at what is now the site of the Italian Garden in Lynch Park, the city's principal public park, and in 1911 and 1912 he rented a different house a mile away, "Parramatta", from Mrs. Robert Peabody. Beverly Hills, California, was named in 1907 after Beverly Farms in Beverly because Taft vacationed there.

Beverly has a former Nike missile site on L. P. Henderson Road, immediately east of the Beverly Municipal Airport. This site was in operation from March 1957 until August 1959, when the Army handed it over to the National Guard. It is now used by Beverly as a storage site and is under the scrutiny of many environmental organizations, as it and the surrounding areas—such as Casco Chemical—have polluted the groundwater, which could be potentially hazardous to the nearby Wenham Lake water supply.